Authorized as part of the National Cemetery System (1862), the City Point National Cemetery, along with twenty others, was established in April 1866 through a later joint resolution of Congress. Military in form, the rectangular 7.5acre cemetery has a semicircular entrance with a wrought iron gate and stone piers. A 4-foot wall of uncoursed fieldstone surrounds the cemetery. At the center a roadway encircles a flagpole and a monument dedicated to the memory of the dead of the Army of the James. An 1868 stone lodge constructed as a residence and office for the superintendent of the cemetery was demolished in 1928 and replaced by the present one-and-one-half-story brick and stucco building with a gambrel roof. The lodge is based on a prototypical plan designed by Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs c. 1865. The more than 5,100 interments of Civil War soldiers and sailors at City Point include approximately 1,400 unknown soldiers and 118 Confederate soldiers.