City Point National Cemetery was established 1866, according to the US VA. “Casualties were originally interred in burial grounds near the hospitals, and later they were reinterred at City Point National Cemetery. Through the years, additional burial sites from various Civil War battles have been discovered as local construction projects, such as subdivision development and road widening were made near the cemetery. Many of these remains-both Union and Confederate-were reinterred at City Point National Cemetery. Unlike other Civil War-era national cemeteries in the Richmond area, here the number of known interments exceeds unknowns. Reinterments include remains from another City Point burial ground, Point of Rocks cemetery (Chesterfield County), and Harrison’s Landing (Charles City County).” It’s likely that the hospital deaths favored the higher proportion of known interments.
The monument to the Army of the James is a 20-foot-high obelisk set on a little (obviously man-made) knoll. The primary inscription reads: SACRED / TO THE / LAMENTED DEAD / OF / THE ARMY / OF THE JAMES . The secondary inscription on another side reads (in all capital letters): Erected to the direction of Maj Genl BF Butler / George Suckler Surg. U.S. Vol. Colonel and Medical Director / H.B. Fowler Surg. 12. N.H. Vol. Surgeon in charge of Point of Rocks Hospital / Geo. Jones Hospital Chaplain / 1865.
The CSA boys are mixed in with the Union boys, as opposed to being interred in a Confederates section or excluded all together.
Brothers
The gravemarker shown here is that of Private Levi Ingolsbee, Wisconsin, First U.S. Sharpshooters, Co. G. He died August 16, 1864, at City Point hospital having received a mortal wound July 2 at Chancellorsville. His brother Private Israel Ingolsbee, serving in the same company, was already gone. Wounded at The Wilderness May 7, he died in a “Va. field hospital” May 13, 1864.
A couple of new plaques near the entry gate tell another poignant story. Phillip Smith of West Virginia, wounded March 1865 at Hatcher’s Run, Virginia, died in May 1865, at Point of Rocks Hospital and is buried at City Point Cemetery. His 22-year-old brother Jacob had perished in a ship wreck off Cape Hatteras, the same month Phillip was mortally wounded.
I hate to imagine how stunned with grief their kinfolk must have been to lose both men within months of each other. At least the Smiths received some comfort when the eldest of the three brothers, John G., who fought CSA, was released from Camp Douglas in May 1865.
Source: US VA