The Board oversaw maintenance of Washington Cemetery at Hagerstown, Maryland, where the Confederate dead of the battles of Antietam and South Mountain were buried. At the Cemetery, 2,468 bodies were interred. Of this number, 346 have been identified.

The Cemetery's Board of Trustees was chartered in 1870 (Chapter 213, Acts of 1870). Originally, it was to have had five members: three from Maryland and one each from Virginia and West Virginia. Virginia and West Virginia contributed to the cost for funding and maintaining the Cemetery initially and so were given a place on the Board. In over one hundred and thirty years, however, neither Virginia nor West Virginia appointed a representative. The Board's three Maryland members were appointed to three-year terms by the Governor.

The Board of Trustees was abolished in October 2010 (Chapter 29, Acts of 2010). Responsibility for supervising the Cemetary was assigned to the Department of Veterans Affairs.