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Stop 2 on the Petersburg National Battlefield Western Front Auto Tour is the Poplar Grove National Cemetery.
At the time of the Civil War this was the farm of Reverend Thomas B. Flower. During the Siege of Petersburg it became the camp of the 50th New York Engineer Regiment. They built a large church with a hundred foot spire that was used by soldiers during the siege and by locals after the war. The badly deteriorating building was torn down in 1868.
In April of 1866 the farm was chosen as the site for a Petersburg area National Cemetery. The bodies of Union soldiers who had been hastily buried on battlefields in nine Virginia counties were disinterred and brought to Poplar Grove. Five dollars was paid to the finder for every set of bones that included a skull.
Between 1866 and 1869 6,200 Union soldiers were reburied in the cemetery, of whom 4,100 were unidentified. About 50 non-Civil War graves were added over the years until 1975. The last three interments were in 2003, when three Civil War soldiers were found at Reams’ Station and Peebles Farm.
Another 5,100 Union soldiers who died in the Field Hospital at City Point are buried at City Point National Cemetery. About 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried in Blandford Cemetery on Crater Road.
Location of Stop 2
Stop Two on the Petersburg National Battlefield Western Front Auto Tour is Poplar Grove National Cemetery. It is on the east side of Vaughan Road about 0.5 mile south of Flank Road. (37°09’36.1″N 77°25’48.4″W)
Directions to the next stop on the Auto Tour:
Return to Vaughn Road, turn left and proceed 0.5 mile. Turn right onto Fort Emory Road for 0.7 mile. Go right onto Squirrel Level Road 0.4 mile. Turn left onto Church Road for 0.7 mile. The parking area for Stop Three is on the right on the north side of Flank Road.