Program Information

It’s thought that the first Virginian who died in the civil war was buried in Hollywood Cemetery. He was a young man, not even twenty when he was cut down on the battlefield. His body was ceremonially escorted across the countryside and placed in Hollywood during a solemn but reverent occasion.

Richmond boasts a cemetery, named Hollywood because of the natural proliferation of holly trees on the grounds, whose history, beauty and tranquility have made it a local treasure. Hollywood Cemetery lives out its original intention for the living and the dead. It is a mature green space with a commanding view of the James River that serves the public as a natural retreat within the confines of the city. It is the final resting place for two U.S. presidents, the only confederate president, several confederate generals, a Supreme Court justice, writers and local celebrities - as well as many people who are not famous at all. In addition to its legendary status in Richmond and beyond, Hollywood remains a working cemetery.

Transcript

NARRATOR: (Snow falling)

It’s thought that the first Virginian who died in the civil war was buried in Hollywood Cemetery. He was a young man, not even twenty when he was cut down on the battlefield. His body was ceremonially escorted across the countryside and placed in Hollywood during a solemn but reverent occasion. At first the war seemed to have little effect on Richmond but the conflict soon fell over the land and people lost the luxury of grieving for their countrymen.

Suzanne Savory: (Visuals: Snow has blanketed the ground at Hollywood)

“In the early phases of the civil war Hollywood would certainly had grown and developed. It had been incorporated for a number of years.”

“Having several hospitals in Richmond really impacted the level of work and the burials that were needed in Richmond. There were here in Hollywood, they were in Oakwood, they were being interred on the battlefield. There was an overwhelming number of death.”

“And it really became a problem later on in the war when there was a need for workers to just dig the graves.”

Bryan Green: (Visuals: Sequence built from LOC photo of burials at Hwood)

“Basically if you could carry a shovel, you could carry a gun, you were off at war. The most continuous African American presence is really during the civil war digging graves. The grave detail were contraband slaves and convicts because there wasn’t anyone left.”

“And units just began brining casualties and literally stacking them up at the cemetery walls. And it grew into an enormous problem. Just the streams of dead coming in, and nowhere to put them. And so quickly they started doing essentially mass burials. Many of the enlisted men buried at Hollywood were buried in sort of a trench fashion, and many of them are not known. Which is why today you’ll see certain collective markers: seventeen dead from a certain place. This was just an attempt to keep up with the casualties coming in.”

Suzanne Savory: (Visuals: Continue with LOC burial images)

“And it was later in the war that there was not even enough materials to really mark the sites. There was a blockade and marble and stone and all of those materials that had been available to mark locations early on were no longer available and there was a movement just to wood markers so that there would at least be some evidence of what was going on.”

“There also was a need for additional property.”

“The boundaries of Hollywood did move outside of the official grounds and there was discussion with the Confederate government and with the city as to where it should go. I’m not sure it was always done quite properly and that they had permission to move in the directions that they did, but they were trying to inter the dead.”

“Hollywood Cemetery did indeed support the Confederacy and the works of the confederate government in Richmond. Their monies where invested in war bonds and government bonds. The burial plots did increase in value and inflation was rampant and was ever increasing so what was three dollars before the war for a plot became forty and then became even higher.”

“They did become successful but what happens after the war is that they are basically in ruin and collapse because the market has fallen and their confederate bonds and their confederate dollars are worth nothing.”

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