There are 1097 Confederate soldiers, 224 from Georgia, who died at the Charlottesville Hospital buried at what is known as Soldier's Field, a walled section of the University of Virginia cemetery. The men were buried in shallow trenches, shoulder to shoulder. Most of the graves are unmarked although a statue of a soldier is placed in the field with bronze tablets on the base listing the soldiers buried in the field.

The graves were originally marked with wooden planks listing the soldier's name and unit. In 1866 some of the women of Charlottesville who volunteered at the hospital during the war realized the wood grave markers were rotting away. They raised $1500 to build a wall around the cemetery. They also measured the distance from two walls of the cemetery to each grave. The coordinates of the graves are recorded in documents located in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections library at the University of Virginia.

In the Richard Heath Dabney papers at the Small Special Collections library, in accession number 2533, box 6, there is an undated folder containing a notebook with the title "Deceased Soldiers 1861-1865". It records the name, rank, regiment, company, as well as the date and cause of death for patients who died at the Charlottesville hospital. Accession number 1235, "Key to The Map of The Soldiers' Cemetery/University of Virginia/With an Alphabetical Index By States," alphabetically lists each soldier by last name, first and middle initials, name of regiment/unit, and approximate burial site in the cemetery based on the number of feet "from University Cemetery wall to center of grave" and number of feet "from wall next to the road to grave."

My 3rd great grandfather Private Elijah Denby, who served in Company B (Worth’s Rebels) of the 10th Battalion of the Georgia Infantry, died at the Charlottesville Hospital on March 1, 1863 and was buried in an unmarked grave. The research staff at the Small Special Collections library was very helpful in finding him in Accessions #2533 and #1235. I requested, and the library sent, digital copies of the pages on which his name appeared in the records at the library. Here is a link to a website page where you can submit a research request to the library: https://small.lib.virginia.edu/reference-request/

Legislation passed by Congress in 1929 and 1930 authorized the furnishing of military headstones for the unmarked graves of Confederate soldiers. If you can prove a "next of kin" relationship with a Confederate soldier in an unmarked grave, as well as the specific location of the grave, and a copy of the soldier's service record from the National Archives, the Veterans Administration will provide a military marker for the grave which you can designate to be sent to the University of Virginia Department of Building and Grounds for installation. You will need to work with the University to arrange for the installation, in fact the cemetery administrator will have to sign your application. Here is a link to the VA website pertaining to Pre World War I headstones. https://www.cem.va.gov/cem/hmm/pre_WWI_era.asp In addition, here is a link to the VA website page describing how to order the headstone with a link to the application: https://www.cem.va.gov/cem/hmm/index.asp

I collected the required documents and ordered a headstone for Private Denby from the Veteran's Administration. On December 11, 2015 I joined several other family members to observe the installation of a marble Confederate grave marker at the location of the grave of Private Elijah Marmaduke Norfleet Denby at the University of Virginia Cemetery. If you have an ancestor buried in an unmarked grave at the University of Virginia Cemetery, I encourage you to spend the time to collect the documents and apply for the headstone.