Based on the research of Jeffry Burden
A memorial to POWs of Civil War Richmond...
...whose story has been recovered after decades of obscurity.
"NEARBY ARE BURIED AT LEAST 661 UNITED STATES SOLDIERS WHO DIED
BETWEEN JULY 1861 AND JUNE 1863 WHILE PRISONERS OF WAR
IN THIS CITY. MANY DIED AT CONFEDERATE GENERAL HOSPITAL NUMBER 1
ADJACENT TO SHOCKOE HILL CEMETERY WHICH TOOK IN UNION WOUNDED
FROM FIRST MANASSAS (BULL RUN) AND OTHER ENGAGEMENTS.
THOUGH MOST WERE ANONYMOUS, THE NAMES OF 88 OF THE DEAD ARE
LISTED BELOW AS THEY APPEAR IN CEMETERY RECORDS.
THIS MARKER WAS PLACED IN 2002 AT THE REQUEST OF THE MILITARY ORDER
OF THE LOYAL LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES TO REMEMBER THEIR FAITHFUL SERVICE."
The above marker refers to one of the forgotten chapters of Civil War Richmond: the identity and fate of hundreds of Union Army prisoners, who were buried near Richmond's Shockoe Hill Cemetery in the first two years of that war.
Original research over the last two decades has recovered information that had been lost for more than a century: the soldiers' names, their units, where and how they died, the precise location of their original burial -- and their true final resting place.