The Culpeper National Cemetery was established in April 1867, in a county that may have seen more Civil War combat than any other in Virginia. Several monuments commemorate the Union casualties of the battle of Cedar Mountain, fought on August 9, 1862. Occupied by each army for months at a time, Culpeper County was the scene of the battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, the largest cavalry battle of the war. Here also was the Union Army’s winter encampment of 1863-64, when Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived to take command. Union dead from those actions are also in the cemetery. The Second Empire-style superintendent’s lodge was built in 1872 from a design by Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs. In 1978 the Veterans of Foreign Wars donated adjacent land which doubled the size of the cemetery and relieved pressure on Arlington National Cemetery. The Culpeper National Cemetery was listed in the registers under Civil War-Era National Cemeteries Multiple Property Documentation (MPD) nomination, and it contributes to the town of Culpeper’s South East Street Historic District.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia