Railroads connecting Washington, D.C., and Richmond crossed Culpeper County, Virginia, making the area a major Civil War battleground occupied at different times by both Union and Confederate armies. In 1861, Confederates established a supply depot and training site here. In August 1862, Union Gen. John Pope brought the Army of Virginia into Culpeper County and fought Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson at the Battle of Cedar Mountain without winning a Union victory. In fall 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee wintered in Culpeper County. Brandy Station, the war’s largest cavalry battle, was fought here in June 1863, and neither side claimed victory. After Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg the following month, Confederate troops returned to Culpeper to regroup. Following the second Battle of Rappahannock Station in November 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac forced Lee out of the county and wintered there. The next spring, Ulysses S. Grant began his Overland Campaign from Culpeper, carrying the war south toward Petersburg and Richmond. In 1867, the federal government bought 6 acres from Edward B. Hill, brother of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill, to establish Culpeper National Cemetery. It holds Union soldiers who died at Cedar Mountain, Brandy Station, Trevilian Station, the Gordonville Confederate hospital, and many other places in Culpeper, Page, and Rappahannock counties. The original cemetery had four burial sections arranged in a square, with a flagstaff at the end of the main drive marking the center. In the 1870s, permanent marble headstones replaced temporary headboards on the 1,355 Civil War graves, and a brick enclosure wall and Second Empire-style lodge were added at the entrance. The cemetery has expanded to more than 29 acres. An 1872 law directed the secretary of war to appoint a superintendent for each national cemetery from among meritorious and trustworthy soldiers, either commissioned officers or enlisted men of the Volunteer or Regular Army, who had been honorably mustered out or discharged from United States service. The cemetery also contains five monuments erected between 1893 and 1910 by veterans’ organizations, including memorials to the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, 10th Maine Infantry Regiment, 28th New York Infantry Regiment, and 7th Ohio Infantry Regiment for their service at Cedar Mountain, and a larger monument funded by Pennsylvania honoring the Civil War service of all Pennsylvanians.
