the remains of soldiers killed at Cold Harbor in 1864 were excavated and reburied in 1866
Source: Google Arts and Culture (by John Reekie, 1866)
the remains of soldiers killed at Cold Harbor in 1864 were excavated and reburied in 1866
Source: Google Arts and Culture (by John Reekie, 1866)
Dead bodies of soldiers were typically buried quickly on the battlefield. Confederate or Union forces that ended up with possession of a site would direct units of soldiers, or hire enslaved people or local laborers, to dig graves. If troops moved too fast to perform that duty, local residents had to bury the dead on their own initiative if they wanted to replant or harvest fields.
Burial was an unpleasant challenge. In the hot summer, bodies and dismembered body parts bloated quickly. Dead people and especially dead horses created a stench across the area. Individual graves were shallow, not dug six feet deep. Dirt excavated from a one-foot or two-foot hole would be piled on the side. After a body was shoved into the hole.. the dirt would be piled on top and the gravedigger moved on to the next dead soldier lying on the ground. Such graves provided little protection from wild animals seeking a quick meal.
Where the ground was hard and dry, it was easier to pick up the remains, put them on a cart, and move them to a ravine. Mass graves could be dug by excavating a series of adjacent holes, using the dirt from a new hole to cover a body just placed n the ground. On occasion, particularly if burials were done by soldiers from a regiment who had an appreciation of the dead, wooden markers with names were erected at the graves.
if any markers were placed at initial graves, they were typically temporary and made of wood
Source: National Library of Medicine, Soldiers' graves at Bull Run
Farmers normally plowed around known mass graves, but in the years after battles it was common to exhume isolated burials.
starting in 1866, bones of over 2,500 Confederate soldiers were reburied at Stonewall Cemetery in Winchester
Source: Winchester Tales, Facebok post (March 22, 2024)
Post-Appomattox, the Federal government made a concerted effort to excavate burials of Union soldiers and move remains to new national cemeteries. The remains of many Confederate soldiers were also exhumed and moved to formal cemetery sites.
Many of the buried soldiers could not be identified by name. In 1866, General Montgomery Meigs created a monument in what is now Arlington National Cemetery for reburial of unidentified Union dead excavated from Virginia battlefields.
unidentified Union soldiers were reburied at Arlington Cemetery in 1866
Source: Library of Congress, Civil War Unknowns monument, designed by Montgomery Meigs and dedicated in 1866, at Arlington Cemetery
The National Park Service lists 18 Federal cemeteries in Virginia specifically created to bury Civil War veterans from the Union Army. No other state has more such cemeteries. The Veterans Administration manages all except four. The Department of the Army manages Arlington National Cemetery. The National Park Service manages civil War cemeteries in Fredericksburg, Poplar Grove, and Yorktown:1
Alexandria National Cemetery, Alexandria
Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington
Ball's Bluff National Cemetery, Leesburg
City Point National Cemetery, Hopewell
Cold Harbor National Cemetery, Mechanicsville
Culpeper National Cemetery, Culpeper
Danville National Cemetery, Danville
Fort Harrison National Cemetery, Richmond
Fredericksburg National Cemetery, Fredericksburg
Glendale National Cemetery, Richmond
Hampton National Cemetery, Hampton
Hampton Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) National Cemetery, Hampton
Poplar Grove National Cemetery, Petersburg
Richmond National Cemetery, Richmond
Seven Pines National Cemetery, Sandston
Staunton National Cemetery, Staunton
Winchester National Cemetery, Winchester
Yorktown National Cemetery, Yorktown
New burial grounds for Confederate soldiers were created after the Civil War without Federal funds, though some Confederate soldiers ended up in national cemeteries.
Confederate soldiers were exhumed and reburied at Appomattox Court House
There are many other cemeteries across the state in which soldiers were buried. Where soldiers camped, many died of disease and were buried nearby. Similarly, there are cemeteries near hospitals for those who died of diseases or wounds. Amputated limbs and even whole bodies were placed in wound pits next to hospitals, such as at Manassas National Battlefield Park.
Source: Exploring History Together, A Tour of the Alabama 10th Regiment Civil War Cemetery, Bristow Virginia
Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond highlights that it is the final resting place for Confederate soldiers, officers, and even Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America. As in Arlington National Cemetery, there is a large monument in Hollywood Cemetery to honor the unknown who were re-interred there.
Many soldiers lie in family or community graveyards, such as John Singleton Mosby in Warrenton Cemetery. Others who died as the result of fighting were hastily buried on the spot, or not even buried at all.
many soldiers were buried in family plots, or at camps where they died from disease or wounds
Source: Library of Virginia, Sketchbook of Vance and Maxweli
Battlefields are often described as "hallowed ground" because not all bodies were removed. Most Virginia soils are acidic and dry, so in many cases calcium-rich bones and skulls have decayed away since the 1860's. At any military camp, hospital, or battleground there may be unknown graves. Archeologists seeking to identify grave sites use metal detectors in hopes of finding buttons from uniforms, then maybe teeth. Ground penetrating radar can also identify depressions created where bodies were buried.
Reburials are still occurring in Civil War cemeteries.
After the leader of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, was assassinated in 1967 by a disgruntled fellow Nazi, the party requested burial in Culpeper National Cemetery. Rockwell was eligible as a veteran; he had served in World War II and Korea. The Defense Department authorized burial there, next to Union soldiers who had died in the Civil War.
The attempt to bury George Lincoln Rockwell in the 1862 cemetery was thwarted after the funeral became a circus. The Nazis insisted on wearing armbands and carrying flags with swastikas as they followed the hearse into the cemetery. The cemetery superintendent blocked access until the swastikas were removed. For a brief moment, the hearse was stopped on the Southern Railway tracks as a freight train was rapidly approaching.
One Nazi leader climbed on the hearse and called for an assault on the military police blocking the road, but no one followed his direction.
The standoff ended when the military withdrew authorization for burial a Culpeper National Cemetery. The party leaders ended up having their assassinated leader cremated and, according to one report, party members secretly scattered his ashes at Arlington Memorial Cemetery. Burning his body to ashes in an oven was an ironic ending for the American Nazi Party leader.2
George Lincoln Rockwell, wearing a swastika
Source: Fotocollectie Anefo (Netherlands), Nazi-leider Lincoln Rockwell doodgeschoten
In 2021, the National Park Service searched for a new gravesite in Fredericksburg National Cemetery. The last Civil War veteran had been buried in the cemetery in 1945 and it had been declared "closed" in 2010, but new remains were discovered in 2015 at the site of a hospital during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Ground penetrating radar was used to identify a spot with no previous burial and no archeological resources.
About 15,000 men were killed in battles around Fredericksburg between 1862-64. Many were buried without identification by name, and the 2021 remains were not expected to be associated with any particular soldiers.3
in 2021, the National Park Service searched for a site in Fredericksburg National Cemetery for burial of remains of Civil War soldiers discovered in 2015
Source: Facebook, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields National Military Park (June 30, 2021)