Overcrowding at the military prison at Point Lookout, Maryland, led the U.S. Army to establish Elmira Military Prison in May 1864 at Elmira, New York, where the first prisoners arrived on July 6 and by fall 1864 more than 9,000 prisoners occupied the camp; more than 12,000 prisoners passed through during the year it operated, and almost 3,000 men died, with most deaths attributed to the harsh winter of 1864-1865, giving Elmira the highest mortality rate of any Union military prison. Almost immediately, the U.S. Army leased a half acre from Woodlawn Cemetery for the burial of Confederate prisoners and Union soldiers, and John W. Jones, an escaped slave and caretaker of Woodlawn Cemetery, buried the Confederates, recording each burial as bodies were taken from the dead house in coffins labeled with identifying information, then placed in trenches and marked with painted wooden headboards; on one day alone, Jones buried forty-eight men. In 1874 the federal government purchased two acres containing the graves of Union and Confederate dead to establish Woodlawn National Cemetery. In 1906 the Commission for Marking Graves of Confederate Dead visited the cemetery, documented prison burials, sought information from Southern states, and compiled a list of more than 2,000 names; in 1908 it placed Confederate-style headstones inscribed with the deceased's name and regiment on the graves. Broader reconciliation followed the Civil War as the Grand Army of the Republic decorated Union and Confederate graves at Arlington National Cemetery in 1868, President William McKinley later called for shared care of Confederate soldiers' graves, the War Department created the Confederate section at Arlington in 1901, Congress created the Commission for Marking Graves of Confederate Dead in 1906, and by 1916 the commission had marked more than 25,000 graves, with the Southern Cross of Honor authorized for Confederate headstones in 1930.