Cold Harbor National Cemetery

Cold Harbor National Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
The Lodge at Cold Harbor National Cemetery
Nearest city	Mechanicsville, Virginia
Area	1.4 acres (0.57 ha)
Built	1866
Architect	Meigs, Montgomery C.
Architectural style	Second Empire
MPS	Civil War Era National Cemeteries MPS
NRHP reference No.	95000922
Added to NRHP	August 10, 1995

Cold Harbor National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery in Mechanicsville, Hanover County, Virginia. It encompasses 1.4 acres (5,700 m²), and as of the end of 2005, had 2,110 interments. It is administered by the Hampton National Cemetery.

History

Cold Harbor National Cemetery was established in 1866 on the site of the American Civil War Battle of Cold Harbor, interments were collected from a 22-mile (35 km) area, taken from the battlefields of Mechanicsville (Beaver Dam Creek), Gaines' Mill, Savage's Station, and Cold Harbor. The land was appropriated in April 1865 during the first post-war search and re-burial operations conducted on the Cold Harbor battlefield, but not purchased until the cemetery was officially established the following year. Another search for buried and unburied remains occured in 1867 and yeilded over 1,000 full and partial skeletons that had been missed the previous year. Due to space limitations at Cold Harbor these remains, of which only a handfull were indentified, were reintered in the larger Richmond National Cemetery.

The cemetery is administered by the Hampton National Cemetery in Hampton, Virginia, but basic maintenance and upkeep is provided by the Cold Harbor unit of the Richmond National Battlefield Park. The cemetery features a masonry lodge designed by Montgomery C. Meigs.

Cold Harbor National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

Notable monuments

• Monument to the Unknowns, a 5-foot-high (1.5 m) marble sarcophagus erected by the federal government in 1877 to commemorate the 889 unknown Union soldiers buried in two trench graves at the back of the cemetery.
• The Pennsylvania Monument, a 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) granite spire with a statue of a soldier at the top, was erected in 1909 by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and dedicated to its regiments lost at Cold Harbor.
• The 8th New York Heavy Artillery Monument, a granite block with a bronze plaque listing the names of those from the detachment who died at Cold Harbor, erected in 1909 by the state of New York.

Notable interments

• Sergeant Major Augustus Barry, Medal of Honor recipient for action in the Civil War. Sergeant Major Barry was also the first superintendent of Cold Harbor National Cemetery.

See also

• United States Department of Veterans Affairs
• United States National Cemetery

External links

• National Cemetery Administration
• Cold Harbor National Cemetery