Confederate and Union Burial Ground

This cemetery is the final resting place for numerous Civil War veterans. It was originally the burial ground of the Black family, for whom the town is named. The cemetery later grew in size and eventually merged with the African American graveyard located across the street.

Notable veterans resting here include Dr. Harvey Black, 4th Virginia Infantry, who assisted in amputating Stonewall Jackson's arm; Col. Charles Ronald of the Stonewall Brigade; John McBryde of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's command and 5th president of Virginia Tech; Captain Thomas Nelson Conrad, Confederate spymaster and 3rd president of Virginia Tech; and Union Capt. John Brady of Gen. William T. Sherman's command.

The town of Blacksburg, just west of here, was a thriving hamlet before the Civil War. Men from the town and Montgomery County filled the ranks of numerous Confederate regiments, including the 4th Virginia Infantry, which became part of the Stonewall Brigade. Many of those men survived the war and returned to Blacksburg to take part in the region's postwar recovery. Many other Confederate and Union veterans gravitated to Blacksburg after the war and helped to develop the land-grant college known today as Virginia Tech.

The Preston and Olin Institute in Blacks- burg (forerunner of Virginia Tech) was used as a Federal encampment following the 1864 Battle of Cloyd's Mountain. That engagement was the largest battle in Southwest Virginia and part of Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's total war initiative that eventually crippled the Confederacy.

(captions)
(upper left) Dr. Harvey Black / Thomas Nelson Conrad
(top center) United Veterans Group from Blacksburg, ca. 1901
(lower right) Preston and Olin Institute, 1870 All images courtesy Virginia Tech

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Show me all markers in:  Blacksburg, VA  |  Montgomery County  |  24060  |  Virginia  |  United States of America

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