Fredericksburg Confederate Cemetery

The Fredericksburg area was ravaged by four major battles during the Civil War – the Battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. These caused over 15,000 deaths, not to mention thousands and thousands more from illness and disease. Many soldiers were buried where they fell or in the fields surrounding homes that had been taken over as hospitals. Once the war ended, the United States government made a concerted effort to recover Union soldiers’ remains and bury them in national cemeteries. The military had reburied 300,000 men in 73 such cemeteries, including Fredericksburg National Cemetery, within five years of the war’s end. However, there was no matching national effort for Confederate troops. This spurred the creation of dozens of Ladies’ Memorial Associations, dedicated to creating and maintaining Confederate cemeteries, across the south. Many of these organizations were simply postwar outgrowths of groups of civilians that had been supporting the Confederate army during the war. They were quite successful; in fact, over a quarter of all the Confederate dead are buried in cemeteries established by just seven of Virginia’s Ladies’ Memorial Associations.

The chief sponsors of Fredericksburg’s Ladies’ Memorial Association were J. Horace and Betty Lacy. They owned Ellwood Manor, which was used as a Confederate hospital during the war, and Horace served as an aide to several Confederate generals. Rebel soldiers were buried on their property, and the Lacys attempted to keep records of the graves on their land. As a result, they saw the need for official Confederate cemeteries in the region. Betty began organizing Fredericksburg’s Ladies’ Memorial Association in the spring of 1866. On Sunday, May 6th, preachers across the city advertised a new effort to create a cemetery for the Confederate dead buried throughout the region. The Association’s first meeting was held on May 10th and was addressed by Horace Lacy. They recruited him to go on a speaking tour throughout both the north and the south to collect donations for their project; his oratorical skill earned him the nickname “the Lion of the Wilderness” and raised over $10,000. The members of the Association hosted shows and fairs to further fund the new cemetery.

The Association soon purchased two lots immediately north of the Fredericksburg City Cemetery; there was talk of a merger, but it never occurred. The new Confederate Cemetery was dedicated in May 1870. It is the final resting place of 3,553 Confederate soldiers from fourteen states, including 2,184 unidentified sets of remains. The unknown soldiers are buried in the center of the cemetery, while the other graves are located in a St. Andrews Cross/”Southern Cross” arrangement. These graves were originally marked by wooden posts, which were replaced in the 1880s by Georgia marble headstones. The unknown graves are marked by a monument that was begun in July 1874. The dirt mound and granite base were completed by May 1881 and topped by a mock artillery shell. The shell was replaced by a life-size bronze statue of a Confederate soldier in 1891.

There are six Confederate generals buried here: Seth Barton, Dabney Maury, Abner Perrin, Daniel Ruggles, Henry Sibley, and Carter Stevenson. Perrin was killed in battle near Fredericksburg, but the others died after the war and were buried here. Only about a third of the three-acre cemetery is used for Confederate burials, as plots on the remaining land were sold to local civilians to help pay for the cemetery’s upkeep. This makes it somewhat difficult to differentiate the Confederate Cemetery and the City Cemetery, which are still owned and operated by separate entities. The Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park has a list of all those interred in the Confederate Cemetery, and inquiries can be made by calling (540) 373-6122.

The Confederate Cemetery is open daily from dawn to dusk and can be accessed through the 1870 Classical Revival-style cast iron gate on Washington Avenue. A map is displayed at the entrance to help guide visitors through the cemetery and its different sections. It remains in the care of the Ladies’ Memorial Association, one of only two remaining in Virginia. They hold one of the country’s longest-running Memorial Day ceremonies there every year. It was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2018 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2019. Recently, the Association and the community have begun working to acquire and set new flat granite headstones in front of the deteriorating 1880s markers.

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