Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery–History of the Civil War Soldiers’ Section
by Kenneth J. Finlayson, past DGS president
Between 1862 and 1925, Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery buried 124 soldiers in the original Soldier’s Section. This webpage provides history of the burials, biographies of 122 of those soldiers, and a current cemetery map of the graves. Many thanks to Ken Finlayson, past DGS president, who compiled this research.
Thirty-nine (39) soldiers were buried during the war (up to April 31, 1865), and six more were buried there shortly after the war due to war-related disease or injury, bringing the total of war-period soldiers to 45. After the war, 79 Civil War veterans were buried in the old Soldier’s Section. The first soldier was buried on November 8, 1862, and the last was on March 11, 1925.
Background
At the beginning of the war, there were no formal hospitals in Wilmington. Wounded and sick soldiers depended on the Delaware Hospital near Chester and the Philadelphia Hospital for care. Wilmington was a railway stop where soldiers were transported north for medical services. Until the Tilton Military Hospital began accepting patients in March of 1863, Wilmington was where soldiers from several states with serious medical conditions were taken off the train for emergency treatment.
The Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery had begun to receive Civil War veterans as the war began. For example, on July 23, 1862, they buried Cpl. John D. Filar from Co. K, 2nd Delaware Infantry. He died the day before in a Philadelphia hospital of Typhoid Fever. He lived in Wilmington as a printer assistant with his mother and her second husband at 413 E. 2nd Street before the war. John’s body was “taken home”[1], and his mother, Sarah, buried him in the main cemetery.
There was also James T. Osmond, a corporal with Co. A, 3rd Delaware Infantry. He died of Typhoid Fever in a Baltimore Hospital on October 9, 1862.[2] He got sick on a march from Front Royal to Antietam in mid-September.[3] His family was living in Canterbury, Delaware (Rt. 13 south of Camden), and his “remains taken to Wilmington by his father.”[4] He is buried in the main section of the cemetery.
These early Civil War veterans were buried through the normal internment process; however, during the summer of 1862, the newly formed Delaware State Association for the Relief of Sick and Wounded Soldiers (DSARSWS) had been talking with the board of the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery about creating a special section for soldiers.
DSARSWS was formed in July 1862.[5] They had the cooperation of the Ladies’ Aid Association, formed on July 22, 1862, to aid the sick and wounded veterans of Delaware. Quickly, they saw that, in addition to assistance with provisions and other types of support, the deceased soldiers, especially those who were indigent, needed a burial place.
The Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery Soldier’s Section began with a somewhat unusual event. On Friday afternoon, November 7, 1862, a trainload of 450 sick and wounded veterans from the Harpers Ferry Field Hospital arrived at the Baltimore & Pennsylvania rail station at Market and Water Street. They were on their way north but had to stop indefinitely because the bridge at Thurlow’s Station had burnt and was impassable. Thurlow’s Station was near today’s Highland Avenue station of Septa (39.833361, -75.393533).[6] All 450 soldiers were detained, taken off the train, and quartered in Hunsberhger’s Carriage Factory across the street on the SW corner of Market and Water Street. Before the Civil War, Wilmington had a very brisk business in building carriages. Enos Hunsberger, in 1860, built a five-story carriage factory, but the war cut off his southern trade, and his business failed.[7] The factory was empty.
The Delaware Gazette states: “One man died on Friday night and another on Sunday. The remains of the deceased soldiers were escorted to the cemetery by a detachment of the 4th Delaware Regiment.” According to the same article, the train started north again to Philadelphia on Saturday, November 8th at 11 AM.[8]
The first two graves in the original Soldier’s Section were Josiah Hand, who died Nov 7, 1862, and William Oliver Hatch, who died Nov 7, 1862. There were 124 veteran graves in this old Soldiers’ Section. James H. Joseph, Company D, 3rd Delaware Infantry, was the last to be buried in the old Soldier’s Section on March 11, 1925.
The State of Delaware began to construct I-95 through Wilmington. In a June 9, 1966 letter from the Greater Wilmington Development Corporation to the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery, the official news that some of the graves in the cemetery would have to be moved due to the widening and reconstruction of Delaware Avenue to accommodate the entrance and exit ramps to I-95. In that letter, the cemetery was informed to take approximately 24 feet of cemetery property for those purposes.
The re-internment was completed in July 1967, and 107 graves were moved to the present Soldiers’ Section. Seventeen of the original 124 veterans were moved elsewhere by the descendants, either within the W&B cemetery or other cemeteries.
[1] Philadelphia Death Certificate.
[2] Delaware Death Records and Military Headstone Records.
[3] Military Records.
[4] Military Records, Record of Death and Internment.
[5] Delaware State Journal & Statesman, November 7, 1862.
[6] The Delaware Gazette, November 11, 1862, p3. Entire description of this event is contained in this reference.
[7] Scharf, John Thomas, History of Delaware: 1609-1888: A General History, p. 362. In fact, in the Delaware Gazette in mid-November announced the bid to buy Hunsberger’s factory.
[8] The Delaware Gazette, November 11, 1862. p3.
Biographies of 122 Civil War soldiers buried in Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery (pdf)
Cemetery map of the Civil War Soldiers’ Section of the Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery (pdf)
Created 6 January 2025