Established 1866 to inter 638 unknown Civil War dead, Confederate POWs, and military hospital casualties
419 Marshall Avenue, Hampton, VA 23669
Research updated June 2026
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All Ages
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Free
Free public national cemetery. Open during daylight hours.
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Wheelchair OK
Paved roads and flat grass sections throughout the cemetery grounds
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Est. 1866 · National Cemetery Established 1866 · 638 Unknown Civil War Dead · 272 Confederate POW Interments · Fort Monroe Military Hospital Casualties · World War II POW Graves
Hampton National Cemetery was established in 1866 on land adjacent to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Hampton, Virginia peninsula. The cemetery's origins predate its formal establishment by four years: Fort Monroe served as a major Union base throughout the Civil War, and a military hospital on the post with capacity for 1,800 patients generated a substantial number of deaths from wounds and disease beginning in 1862. The first burials arrived from that hospital, when the medical challenges of large-scale Civil War casualties outpaced the ability to identify the dead.
The cemetery holds 638 unknown Civil War soldiers — men whose identity could not be established at the time of death or shortly after. Their graves are marked with uniform stones bearing the word UNKNOWN. This section represents one of the concentrations of unidentified Civil War dead interred in the national cemetery system established after 1862.
Also buried at Hampton are 272 Confederate prisoners of war held at Tidewater Virginia detention sites. The presence of Confederate POW graves in a Union-established national cemetery was not uncommon; many such cemeteries received the remains of prisoners who died during captivity at nearby facilities.
The National Park Service has documented Hampton National Cemetery in its survey of Civil War national cemeteries. The cemetery continued receiving interments into the twentieth century, including the graves of World War II prisoners of war. The Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration now maintains the grounds.
Sources
Hampton National Cemetery does not have an active paranormal tradition comparable to the ghost-tour circuit sites nearby. Its dark-tourism standing comes from documented historical reality: the graves of 638 men whose identities were never established, killed in a war whose scale overwhelmed both military medicine and record-keeping. The unknown sections carry a specific weight — these are not lost names but specifically unidentified dead from a hospital that processed thousands of casualties.
The 272 Confederate POW graves add another layer. Men who fought against the Union government are buried within a Union-established national cemetery, a quiet artifact of the reconciliation politics and logistical necessities of the postwar period.
Visitors to Virginia's other historic sites — Fort Monroe, St. John's Episcopal Church — often add Hampton National Cemetery to the same trip as a complementary stop. The cemetery is maintained and accessible during daylight hours.
Walk the grounds of Hampton National Cemetery to view the section of 638 unknowns — Civil War casualties whose identities were never established — alongside the graves of 272 Confederate prisoners of war held at Tidewater Virginia sites and later WWII POW interments. Interpretive markers explain the cemetery's origins in the Fort Monroe military hospital mortality of 1862.
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St. John's Episcopal Church traces its parish to 1610, making it the oldest English-origin parish in Virginia. The current structure was built in 1728. On August 7, 1861, Confederate troops deliberately burned the building when they abandoned Hampton rather than allow Union forces to use it as a base of operations. The church became the only surviving colonial structure in downtown Hampton after the rest of the town was torched in the same action.