It includes a large burial area that holds the remains of 1,097 Confederate States Army soldiers.

During the American Civil War, the cemetery received the bodies of many Confederate soldiers who died in the university hospital.

The markers were replaced with more permanent ones, including a large stone statue of a Confederate soldier designed by sculptor Caspar Buberl, in 1893.

[2] In 1987, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors approved the construction of a columbarium to receive cremated remains.

[4] In November 2012, the university discovered a previously undocumented "black burial ground" outside the walls of the cemetery.