Restoring the Brick Walls of Poplar Grove National Cemetery at Petersburg

Poplar Grove National Cemetery, at Petersburg National Battlefield, holds the graves of thousands of Union soldiers from the Petersburg campaign; each plain headstone is a reminder of the human cost of the Civil War. In late 2021, masons from the National Park Service's Historic Preservation Training Center repaired the brick wall that surrounds it, in a project paid for by the Great American Outdoors Act.

Masons from the Historic Preservation Training Center restore the cemetery's brick walls. National Park Service photo.

How the cemetery came to be

During the nine-month Petersburg campaign of 1864–65, most Union soldiers who died were buried quickly near where they fell, some in single shallow pits and others in mass graves. In 1866 a search for land for a national cemetery led to a farm just south of the city. It had been the campground of the 50th New York Volunteer Engineers, who during the war had built a Gothic-style pine-log church there called Poplar Grove.

Once the cemetery was established, a "burial corps" of about 100 men set out, with 10 army wagons, 40 mules and 12 saddle horses, to recover soldiers from nearly 100 burial sites around Petersburg. Working until 1869, they reburied 6,718 remains; only 2,139 could be positively identified.

The War Department ran the cemetery until August 10, 1933, when it was transferred to the National Park Service. It is one of 14 national cemeteries the Park Service manages. It is closed to new burials, but its grounds are open every day for visitors to pay their respects.

The work

The wall had failing, deteriorated mortar joints and brickwork, mostly in 75 recessed panel areas on its inner side. From October to December 2021, the masons, joined by Historic Stewards members through Conservation Legacy, repaired, rehabilitated and stabilized 30 double-wythe recessed wall sections:

1. Cleaning. They washed the walls with a special solution and scrubbed them gently with nylon brushes, removing dirt and pollution built up over the more than 150 years since the walls were built.
2. Resetting bricks. Loose bricks in good condition were relaid; bricks too deteriorated to reuse were replaced with matching bricks.
3. Clearing joints. Loose and decayed mortar was removed with hand tools, including hammers and chisels.
4. Repointing. The joints were refilled with natural hydraulic lime and local sand, and the fresh mortar was finished — using paint brushes — to match the historic joints.

Masons used paint brushes to finish the new mortar so it matched the historic joints. National Park Service photo.

In all, 1,100 linear feet of wall was repointed.

The crew repaired and preserved more than 1,100 linear feet of the cemetery wall. National Park Service photo.

Project details

The restoration helps preserve the cemetery as hallowed ground and honors those buried within its walls.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Preservation of Historic Walls of Poplar Grove National Cemetery at Petersburg National Battlefield Supported by GAOA Funding" (Petersburg National Battlefield): https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/gaoa-grove-national-cemetery.htm