Glendale National Cemetery

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 and launched a series of assaults against Union forces moving toward Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac, about 100,000 strong, was within 5 miles of Richmond, but a defeat at Gaines Mill in late June forced McClellan to fall back. Hoping to trap him, Lee ordered Maj. Gen. James Longstreet forward, and the two forces met near Glendale on June 30 in fierce fighting so close that a Union officer said it was "muzzle to muzzle, and powder actually burned the faces of the opposing men." After hours of bloody combat, Confederate forces captured six Union guns and a few acres of woods but failed to stop McClellan's retreat, and each side lost about 3,500 men. The Battle of Glendale, the fifth action in what became known as the Seven Days Battles, was a loss for both sides. Thousands of Union soldiers who died in battles for control of Richmond were later buried in Glendale National Cemetery and six national cemeteries established in the Richmond-Petersburg area in 1866. Glendale National Cemetery contains the remains of 1,192 soldiers who died on the battlefields of Glendale and Malvern Hill, in hospitals at Harrison's Landing, and elsewhere nearby, though only 234 of their names were known. When the cemetery was created, it covered a little less than 2 acres and featured walkways radiating from a central flagstaff mound, with burials arranged in rows of concentric circles divided into four sections. By the 1870s, improvements included a brick Second Empire-style lodge for the superintendent's home and office, an inverted cannon in the walkway between the lodge and flagstaff, a bronze plaque on the gun monument recording known and unknown burials, and a stone wall enclosing the cemetery. An 1872 law directed the secretary of war to appoint a superintendent for each national cemetery from among meritorious and trustworthy soldiers, whether commissioned officers or enlisted men of the Volunteer or Regular Army, who had been honorably mustered out or discharged from the service of the United States.

Sandston, Virginia · United States