CSPAN2 Book TV January 2, 2010
hospitals, temporary hospitals set up all over town. and of course those people started dying and had to be buried. so the national cemeteries were established at alexandria virginia and up the old soldier's home in northwest washington. they planned to accommodate all of those who died in the washington area hospitals. what happened was that the war went on longer and was bloodier than anybody expected this of that we pretty soon filled up the graveyards, national cemeteries in alexandria and at the old soldier's home in washington and needed new burial space. so the quartermaster's...
Source: archive.org