With the American Civil War underway, a location was needed for casualties who died in New York hospitals.

Private Alfred Mitchell, a young soldier of the 1st New York Engineers who died on April 13, 1862, was the first Civil War casualty to be interred in the new Union Grounds.

In 1870 the private Cypress Hills Cemetery Association deeded the Union Grounds property to the federal government for a consideration of $9,600.

Three years later, Congress approved a change in legislation to extend burial rights to honorably discharged soldiers, sailors, and Marines who served in the war.

In 1884 the government purchased a 15.4-acre (6.2 ha) parcel from Isaac Snediker, located approximately one half-mile away from the Union Grounds.

Located on the east slope of the Ridgewood Reservoir, the Union Grounds are in the southwest portion of Cypress Hills Cemetery, 833 Jamaica Avenue.

Over the years the bowl-shaped space accepted veterans from other conflicts, up through World War I. Re-interments from other cemeteries added more graves.

Most other interments, however, were largely local in nature, due to the cemetery's location in New York State (which contributed the largest numbers of fighting forces in the Civil War) and the adjacent proximity of the cemetery to New York City, the nation's most populous and hence the prime source of Federal enlistments for the war effort.

In actual size, less than an acre and possessing at least 39 visible veteran headstones and one chaplain monument, The Mount of Victory is the smallest parcel of federal land.

The Mount of Victory is in Section 2 (plot marked 10) on grid 40.69151° N, 73.87549° W of the cemetery nearby West Dolorosa Road.