Danville National Cemetery was established in 1866 on 3.5 acres beside Greenhill Cemetery, and almost all of those buried there were Union prisoners who died in the Danville military prison. An 1868 army inspection reported 1,312 interments, with only 147 unknown. In 1873, the City of Danville and resident Thomas D. Stokes formally deeded the land to the United States, and the next year the federal government built a stone superintendent's lodge and enclosed the cemetery with a stone wall. A central flagstaff and gun monument were installed before 1892, and the present Dutch Colonial Revival-style lodge was built in 1928 to replace the original. By law, the secretary of war appointed a "meritorious and trustworthy" superintendent, originally requiring that he be an enlisted man disabled in service; in 1872 this was broadened to any man honorably discharged from U.S. service, making the position one way the federal government aided injured veterans after the Civil War. Many superintendents lived in the lodges with their families, and the first superintendent was Francis O'Donohoe, a former sergeant in the 5th New York Infantry. Danville's prison had been created after prisoner-of-war facilities in Richmond were overcrowded by mid-1863, prompting Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to order a new prison in Danville. In November, 4,000 Union prisoners arrived and were confined in six brick warehouses in the city's business district under harsh restrictions, including bans on looking out windows or using the first floor or grounds and limited group use of the latrine. A smallpox epidemic in the winter of 1863-64 killed many prisoners, and in January 1865 a Confederate inspector condemned the prisons as dirty, vermin-filled, poorly ventilated, and marked by about five deaths per day from inadequate food.
