A military cemetery whose African American history is hidden in plain sight

On holidays set aside to honor America’s veterans, Philadelphia National Cemetery is like most other military burial grounds, a field of white gravestones and Old Glorys, echoing with patriotic speeches and solemn bugle calls.

When the ceremonies are over, though, those 13 hallowed acres tucked away in West Oak Lane are tread mostly by groundskeepers. The graveyard, a guardian of more than two centuries of United States history, is left alone with its heroic stories.

Of the 11,500 veterans and family members buried in Philadelphia National, many were African American soldiers, for the most part interred in segregated sections of the cemetery. At least 350 were U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) who fought in the Civil War and trained at Camp William Penn in Cheltenham, Montgomery County, the first such facility for black enlistees in the Union Army.

Nearly two years ago, the VA National Cemetery Administration erected three storyboards highlighting the graveyard’s significance. One was about the cemetery, the oldest of four national cemeteries in the Philadelphia region.

Another was about Valley Forge native Galusha Pennypacker, who at age 20 became the youngest person ever to hold the rank of brigadier general. The last was dedicated to 184 Confederate soldiers buried there after being wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg and dying in area hospitals.

There was none for the U.S. Colored Troops.

An embarrassing oversight, declared Ed McLaughlin. A 74-year-old Army veteran from Flourtown, Montgomery County, and retired satellite designer for Lockheed Martin, he and a corps of supporters have been fighting ever since to set it right.

Mr. McLaughlin already knew all about the cemetery and its unheralded history. A genealogy buff who frequently visited Philadelphia National to research his family, he had seen the USCT graves, recognizable by the acronym engraved on the headstones.

“I realized the enormity of it,” he said. “This is important. This is an historical treasure. It has to be known.”

The National Cemetery Administration has heard the plea.

Gregory Whitney, director of Washington Crossing National Cemetery in Bucks County, oversees the region’s four national cemeteries, as well as the veterans sections of Mount Moriah Cemetery spanning Philadelphia and Yeadon. He said a visitor requested a storyboard for the USCT during last year’s Memorial Day ceremonies at Philadelphia National, after which Mr. Whitney visited the Camp William Penn Museum in Cheltenham Township. Since then, he said, he has conveyed the complaints of Mr. McLaughlin and others to the National Cemetery Administration’s historian. “It doesn’t hurt to write a letter,” he tells storyboard supporters.

“I don’t know what the criteria was for [the storyboards],” Mr. Whitney said. “A lot of Civil War cemeteries have a lot of history. So you may have two storyboards in one cemetery, but could argue for 10 more.”

For some, the concerns run deeper than simply overlooked history. “It is inappropriate to have information on the Confederates, who were fighting against the U.S., and not have something for the USCT who are buried there,” said James Paradis, an adjunct history professor at Arcadia University in Glenside and author of Men of Nerve: The 5th Massachusetts Cavalry in the Civil War.

The cemetery was established in 1862 to consolidate the burials of Civil War soldiers who had been interred in cemeteries throughout the area. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

Occupying the USCT graves were former slaves and free men who had trained at Camp William Penn, in such unsanitary conditions that typhoid and malaria sometimes killed the men before they stepped onto the battlefield, said Donald Scott Sr., a professor at Community College of Philadelphia and author of “Camp William Penn: 18631865.”

Inspired by the history of the USCT, Mr. McLaughlin began his own research.

He plumbed military records downloaded from the National Archives, including pension information, pay stubs and death certificates.