Richmond National Cemetery

During the Civil War, Union and Confederate armies fought multiple battles for control of Richmond, and thousands of Union soldiers perished. Many are buried in Richmond National Cemetery, one of seven national cemeteries established in the Richmond-Petersburg area in 1866. Most of the men buried there died in Richmond's Confederate prisons, including 3,200 Union soldiers reinterred from Oakwood Cemetery, 388 from Hollywood Cemetery, 210 prisoners moved from Belle Isle, and twelve men removed from a trench in the Rocketts near Castle Thunder prison. Another 2,710 Union soldiers who died in local battles are interred there, and fourteen non-combatants, including civilians and government employees, are also buried there. Nearly a decade passed between the cemetery's establishment and the completion of the reinternments. An 1868 U.S. Army report estimated 6,329 burials, and by 1874 the grave count had risen to 6,540. The eight-acre cemetery was originally laid out in four sections centered on a flagstaff mound, with each section divided by graveled walks into six plots. The government built its first brick Second Empire-style lodge there in 1870, and by 1874 a stone wall enclosed the cemetery. The first superintendent, Patrick Hart, a discharged sergeant from Co. B, 44th U.S. Infantry, erected a greenhouse near the lodge to raise plants and trees for use in the cemetery. Today, more than 9,000 burials are located there, including an unknown Confederate soldier reinterred in 1978. Richmond, the Confederate capital, also held thousands of Union prisoners of war in Libby Prison, Castle Thunder, and on Belle Isle. In March 1862, the Confederate government seized Luther Libby's warehouse and turned it into Libby Prison. Five months later, Gleanor's Tobacco Warehouse, Palmer's Factory, and Whitlock's Warehouse together became Castle Thunder prison. Another prison opened that summer on Belle Isle, a small island in the James River across from Libby Prison, where prisoners lived in tents on an open field. The tents were stifling in summer and cold and windy in winter, and poor conditions fostered disease at all three prisons, causing thousands of Union captives to die and be buried in private Richmond cemeteries, including hundreds on Belle Isle.

Montrose, Virginia · United States