Poplar Grove National Cemetery - Petersburg, Virginia - Civil War Discovery Trail Sites on Waymarking.com

Throughout the battlefield across Petersburg, the Union soldiers who were killed were burried in very quick order. These often were shallow graves, often without markings of any type. Some graves were marked with wooden crosses and handwritten notes, that weather would wipe away. Others were burried in mass graves. Some field hospitals had cemeteries nearby, and were generally outside the line of fire allowing for more time to bury the dead in a proper fashion.

A national cemetery was not created in Petersburg until 1866. By this time, nature had started taking back its own. A site was selected just south of the city, that had been the encampment of the 50th New York Volunteer Engineers. During the war, they had constructed a pine log church, built in a gothic-style. They named the church, "Poplar Grove."

From across the battlefield nearly 100 individual burial sites with more than 5,000 Union soldiers intered within. Bodies were brought from as far away as Lynchburg, Virginia. The task fell to a group of about 100 men, searching the countryside. Some graves would be found by stakes that marked the ground; others identified by the disturbance in the ground. The "burial corps," as they were known, formed a sort of police call line, spread a yard a part. Each man would be responsible for searching half a yard on either side. And so was the entire battlefield searched. The corps worked for three years, reinterring 6,718 remains; only 2,139 would be identified.

In 1933, the cemetery was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service. Poplar Grove is only one of fourteen National Cemeteries to be cared for by the National Parks Service. The stone caretakers building today is being used as a Ranger Station. It is open during the summer months, allowing visitors to ask questions and the grounds interpreted for their historic meaning.

Type of site: Cemetery Address: 1539 Hickory Hill Road Petersburg, VA USA 23803 Phone Number: 804-861-2488 Admission Charged: No Charge Website: [Web Link] Driving Directions: From I-85 take Squirrel Level Road exit south to Wells Road and follow to Halifax Road. Turn right, Proceed to Vaughan Road; turn right. Travel approximately 2 miles to cemetery; there is a sign on the left.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/01/2015 ehatch visited it