Richmond National Cemetery lies some 15 miles east of New Kent . . .

 

 At the close of the Civil War, the remains of Union soldiers who died during the numerous battles in and around Richmond, including the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, the 1864 Overland Campaign, and the Sieges of Petersburg and Richmond, were scattered among the city’s cemeteries and battlefield burial grounds.  When the Richmond National Cemetery opened in 1866, most of the first burials were reinterments of Union soldiers from other sites in the area.  The reburied soldiers include 3,200 from Oakwood Cemetery in Richmond, 388 from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, 210 from the cemetery at the Belle Island Confederate Prison, and hundreds more from the battlefields of Cold Harbor, Seven Pines, and more than 70 additional sites within a 25-mile radius.

From Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers who Died in Defence of the American Union, Interred in the National  Cemeteries and Other Burial Places ... Vols 16-17

Union Soldiers Interred in Richmond National Cemetery, VA

Division: F

Section: 1

No. 5621

(76 to 148)    73 unknown

These bodies were interred in an triangular enclosure, at Bottom's Bridge, where the New Kent road crosses the Chickahominy river. No. 76 was No. 1 grave on the southwest corner of the triangle and the rows followed the hypotenuse.

"The Common Altar of Our Love and Loyalty"

Confederate Memorial At Arlington National Cemetery

120 years ago . . .

"Sectional lines no longer mar the map of the United States. Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we bear each other. Fraternity is the national anthem, sung by a chorus of forty-five States and our Territories at home and beyond the seas. The Union is once more the common altar of our love and loyalty, our devotion and sacrifice... . The national cemeteries for those who fell in battle are proof that the dead as well as the living have our love. . . . Every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate Civil War is a tribute to American valor. And while, when those graves were made, we differed widely about the future of this government, those differences were long ago settled by the arbitrament of arms; and the time has now come, in the evolution of sentiment and feeling under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers."

-"Speech before the Legislature in Joint Assembly at the State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia, December 14, 1898," Speeches and Addresses of William McKinley, from March 1, 1897 to May 30, 1900

"With this demonstration of sectional goodwill in Atlanta, McKinley sparked a movement that would ultimately lead to legislation authorizing the federal government to locate and mark the graves of Confederates who died while in Union custody during the war."

- Michell A. Krowl, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 111, No. 2 (2003)

Interesting News Out of Smithfield

A find at Virginia's oldest church structure . . .

"About 100 unmarked graves have been discovered around the perimeter of a 17th century Smithfield church thanks to ground-penetrating radar."

Happy Memorial Day

A Memorial Day post that went up originally last year. . .

Union Soldiers Interred in Richmond National Cemetery, VA

Division: F

Section: 1

No. 5621

(76 to 148)

73 unknown

These bodies were interred in an triangular enclosure, at Bottom's Bridge, where the New Kent road crosses the Chickahominy river. No. 76 was No. 1 grave on the southwest corner of the triangle and the rows followed the hypotenuse.

-Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers who Died in Defence of the American Union, Interred in the National  Cemeteries and Other Burial Places ...
Vols 16-17
United States. Army. Quartermaster Corps
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1868

"Beneath the Stately Pines"

A COLONIAL GRAVE-YARD.

The Burial-Place of Rev. David Mossom and His Wife.

On the south shore of the historical Chickahominy river, near Providence Forge, there is a colonial grave-yard. It is about an acre in area and is covered with forest trees, some of which are very large. In fact, the old grave-yard is overgrown with virgin pines. The undergrowth is so dense as to make it next to an impossibility to discover a grave or grave-stone. The indications go to show that at some remote period a house or building once stood in this locality. Feasibly it was a church. There it only one grave marked, which is a slab of Portland stone, and on which is distinctly discernible the following epitaph:

"Here lyeth interred the body of Elizabeth, late wife of the Rev'd Mr.David Mossom, rector of the parish of St. Peter, in New Kent county, and daughter of Henry Soane Gent. She departed this life April 2, 1759 in the 55th, year of her age."

This was the wife of Rev. David Mossom, who performed the marriage ceremony for General George Washington, in St. Peter's church, New Kent county, January 6, 1759. He was a Cambridge scholar. Starling is the estate on which the old grave-yard is. It has been owned by the Jerdones since 1771 and now includes 3,000 acres of land. John Smith was caught by the Indians in this vicinity, and it is supposed that in the same locality Pocahontas saved the life of the historic John.

It is presumed that Rev. Mossom is buried beside the grave of his wife, and it is a fitting spot- this sanctuary beneath the stately pines- for the last long resting places of the good old divine and hi beloved helpmate.The soughing of the pines chant a continual requiem for the dead and the  still waters of the old Indian Chickahominy sooth the "dull, cold ear of death."

                                                                                                      J.D.T.

-Richmond Dispatch., February 05, 1893
           

Unknown Dead

A Memorial Day post . . .

Union Soldiers Interred in Richmond National Cemetery, VA

Division: F

Section: 1

No. 5621

(76 to 148)

73 unknown

These bodies were interred in an triangular enclosure, at Bottom's Bridge, where the New Kent road crosses the Chickahominy river. No. 76 was No. 1 grave on the southwest corner of the triangle and the rows followed the hypotenuse.

-Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers who Died in Defence of the American Union, Interred in the National  Cemeteries and Other Burial Places ...
Vols 16-17
United States. Army. Quartermaster Corps
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1868