Cedar Grove Cemetery– 238 E. Princess Anne Road. Cedar Grove Cemetery was established in 1825 as Norfolk’s first public burial ground. Along with many of Norfolk’s founding fathers, there are hundreds of Civil War soldiers and sailors interred here. It is also the site of mass burials of Norfolk citizens that were victims of the 1855 yellow fever epidemic.

General Richard Lucian Page, 2nd Alley West, Lot 25. Page resigned from the U.S. Navy at the beginning of the Civil War to accept a commander’s position with the Confederate navy. In the early days of the conflict, Page worked to organize Virginia’s navy and strengthen its coastal defenses. He was later assigned to oversee the development of a new marine engineering and naval ordnance depot near Charlotte, North Carolina. He was a brigadier general in the Confederate army and commander at Fort Morgan, Alabama when he and much of his command were captured by Union forces in August 1864. General Page was a cousin of General Robert E. Lee.

Admiral John Randolph Tucker, 1st Alley East, Lot 26. Commander Tucker resigned from the U.S. Navy when Virginia seceded from the Union, becoming a Commander in the Confederate Navy. He was Commanding Officer of the CSS Patrick Henry from 1861-62, participating in several combat actions. During the Federal Navy’s attack on the Drewry’s Bluff he commanded one of the defending batteries. In July 1862, Tucker was ordered to Charleston, South Carolina, where he took command of the ironclad Chicora. The following January, he led his ship in a successful attack on Union warships there. He became commander of the Confederate warships at Charleston in March 1863, remaining in that post until the city fell in February 1865. During that time, he was promoted to Captain and aggressively pursued spar-torpedo warfare. During the Civil War’s last weeks he served in the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, and withdrew with the Confederate army to Appomattox, where he surrendered on April 6, 1865.

Elmwood Cemetery– 238 E. Princess Anne Road- Elmwood Cemetery is a 50-acre municipal cemetery established in 1853. It is just across the street from Norfolk’s first municipal cemetery, Cedar Grove and just beside Norfolk’s first African American cemetery, West Point. A mid-nineteenth century grid design cemetery Elmwood is filled with monuments and mausoleums. Within its boundaries are works of nationally known sculpturers Edward Field Sanford, Jr. and William Couper, as well as memorial architect Harold Van Buren Magonigle.

Judge George Blow, Jr., 2nd Alley East, Lot 8. He was a member of the Virginia Militia rising to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1861, he resigned his commission and was appointed Lieutenant Colonel in the 14th VA Regiment. Captured with Norfolk in 1862, he may have been exchanged for a Union Officer. He was forced to give his home to a Union Officer and remained in Norfolk for the duration. He was a member of the Virginia Secession Convention in 1860, first voting against but later for secession. After the war he received an executive pardon from President Andrew Johnson.

James Barron Hope, 2nd Alley East, Lot 57. When Virginia seceded from the union in 1861, Mr. Hope served as the acting quartermaster in Smith’s Battery of Artillery and also with the Confederate War Department. He obtained the rank of Captain and was paroled with the surrender of Johnston’s Army at Greensboro, North Carolina.

William M. Carr, Southeast Lot 309. Civil War Medal of Honor Recipient. He served as a Master-at-Arms in the Union Navy. His citation reads: “On board the USS Richmond during action against rebel forts and gunboats and against the ram Tennessee in Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864. Despite damage to his ship and the loss of several men on board as enemy fire raked her decks, Carr performed his duties with skill and courage throughout the prolonged battle which resulted in the surrender of the rebel ram Tennessee and in the successful attacks carried out on Fort Morgan.”

John Lesner, 3rd Alley East, Lot 14. Enlisted in the Union Army in 1861. He became a state senator after the war. The Lesner Bridge in Virginia Beach is named after him.

Colonel William Lamb, 1st Alley West, Lot 26. William Lamb is best known for his role in commanding the Confederate garrison at Fort Fisher. The newly-promoted Colonel Lamb assumed command of Fort Fisher on July 4, 1862. Although not formally trained as an engineer he spent most of the next two years working to build the fort into the Confederacy’s largest bastion. Recognizing its critical strategic value, he successfully defended the fort against a Union attack led by Benjamin Butler in December 1864. In January 1865 Alfred Terry led a renewed attack against the fort and despite a heroic defense by Lamb and his garrison the fort was captured and Lamb was grievously wounded. He eventually recovered, becoming the mayor of Norfolk from 1880 to 1886.

Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1st Alley West, Lot 34. During the American Civil War Taylor enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861 and joined the staff of General Robert E. Lee. When General Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign, Taylor became his assistant adjutant general. Taylor’s fiancée was Elizabeth Selden “Bettie” Saunders, daughter of United States Navy Captain John L. Saunders. She lived during the war with the Lewis D. Crenshaw family in Richmond. In the last few days of the Siege of Petersburg Taylor received special permission from General Lee to go to Richmond to give Miss Saunders “the protection of his name.” After midnight on April 3, 1865, they were married in the parlor of the Crenshaw house. One week after the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Taylor returned to Richmond with General Lee, reunited with his bride, and returned to Norfolk.

Francis Mallory, Main Center, Lot 16. Civil War Confederate Army Officer. Following his graduation from Virginia Military Institute in 1853, he was employed under William Mahone as an engineer with the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. When the Civil War started, he joined the Confederate army as a Lieutenant and was promoted to Colonel and commander of the 55th VA in 1861. Under his command, his regiment saw action at Frayser’s Farm, Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, Harper’s Ferry, and Fredericksburg. He was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863.

John Henderson Core, Elmwood Extended, Block 19, Lots 11, 12, 13, 14. In 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army as a member of Company G, Sixth VA, Mahone’s Brigade. He later became one of Mosby’s Rangers (Company D, 43rd Battalion VA Cavalry). After the war, he returned to Norfolk where he was a very successful farmer and businessman. He founded John H. Core & Company which were importers, manufacturers, and packing agents. He died in 1910 leaving an estate valued at over $500,000. He stated in his will that he wanted a mausoleum built in Elmwood Cemetery for his remains and those of his wife, Martha Anne. The couple had no children. He set aside $100,000 for the construction of the mausoleum.

Confederate Monuments in the cemetery

Confederate Cemetery

West Point Cemetery– 238 E. Princess Anne Road. James E. Fuller of Norfolk, a former slave and a former quartermaster in the First United States Colored Cavalry, was the motivating spirit behind the erection of Norfolk’s African-American Civil War Memorial. An employee of the Norfolk Customs House, Fuller was largely responsible for the City Council’s granting a portion of the West Point Cemetery in 1886 as a special burial place for black Union veterans. Depending on chicken pot pie suppers, raffles, and concerts to raise funds, the committee headed by Fuller finally had enough money to begin the monument in 1906. The cornerstone was laid on decoration Day the same year. Completed in 1920, the monument is topped by a brown metal statue of a black Union private wearing a kepi, a tightly buttoned tunic, a sholder strap bearing the initials “U.S.A.,” ribbed stockings, and heavy shoes. Backed by a simulated wooden stump, the figure holds a regulation Civil War rifle and has a replica of a bayonet attached to his belt. White marble plaques inserted in the monument’s base record the names of the Grand Army of the Republic camps and other African-American groups which contributed to the memorial’s completion. The soldier depicted on the monument is Norfolk native Sergeant William H. Carney of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. He enlisted in the 54th MA in 1862, and fought with his regiment during the July 18, 1863, attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Carney received the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary bravery under fire.