Question of the Week: 5/25-5/31/20
It’s Memorial Day and a day many of us traditionally visit cemeteries to leave flags, flowers, or just pause to remember…
Is there a Civil War cemetery that has special meaning to you? Which one and why?
It’s Memorial Day and a day many of us traditionally visit cemeteries to leave flags, flowers, or just pause to remember…
Is there a Civil War cemetery that has special meaning to you? Which one and why?
Shepherdstown, WV town cemetery. In particular, the headstone of “Dr William S. Parran”, “Killed at Sharpsburg, a Martyr to the Southern Cause”.
Fort Rice was base of operations for Sully’s campaign against the Sioux during the Civil War. Located on the right bank of the Missouri River in Dakota Territory, not far upstream from its confluence with the Cannonball River the pine board enclosed fort of about six acres was occupied by soldiers from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin… and “galvanized Yankees” belonging to the 1st U.S. Volunteers. Soon after construction of the fort commenced, the first deaths from illness occurred; and the Fort Rice Post Cemetery was established a couple hundred yards outside the compound, in the direction of the setting sun. During 1864 and 1865 nearly one hundred burials due to illness and “succumbed to wounds” were recorded (one of which was my Great-great uncle.)
Fredericksburg. I gave tours there for many years and was always struck by its size, stark beauty, and the fact that many men buried there died trying to take the hill it is on. Also, for most of Fredericksburg’s postwar history (until the mid-90s), more men were buried on that hill than lived within the city limits.
Two cemeteries come to mind. The first is Stonewall Cemetery in Winchester, VA because there’s a Louisiana soldier there that I’ve been trying to track down. His headstone is completely worn away and I’m hoping to have it replaced at some point.
The second is the cemetery at Chalmette because of its diverse occupancy of 1812 soldiers, USCT soldiers, and a female soldier who served in the 153rd New York Infantry (Sarah Wakeman aka Lyons Wakeman).
Gettysburg. It is such a big battlefield cemetery, sitting on a hill that men buried there died defending. The circle of plain white headstones (so many Unknown) honoring the states whose troops fought there is always moving.
Also, the reenactment and park support groups do such an amazing job memorializing (in normal times) Remembrance Day and the Fourth of July. Always makes me proud to be an American.
My 3rd & 4th Great Grandfathers,
Full Gospel Assembly Church – Albemarle County, Virginia
PVT Miletus McCauley
Co. H, 56th Virginia Infantry Regiment
1822-1910
Camden Cemetery on Jack’s Hill
PVT Washington Wood
Co. E, 19th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Piedmont Guard
Massie Mills (Nelson County), Virginia
1841-1917
*survived minie ball shot to the head at Crater
Camden Cemetery on Buffalo Mines Rd at Piney River, Virginia
PVT William Camden
Born Rockbridge, Died Nelson County
Nelson Light Artillery, (Rive’s Company) Stark’s command
1843-1938
The Confederate cemetery at Beauvoir has special meaning to me since it is the resting place of my great grandfather, Pvt. John Grantham of the 7th Mississippi Battalion. Beautiful grounds with many Confederate veterans.
It’s not necessarily a CW cemetery but it is our township cemetery. Located 35 miles north of St. Paul Minnesota is the final resting place of 21 civil war soldiers in the Linwood Township cemetery. I was shocked to even find one this far away from the hub of all things civil war.
I was fascinated to learn several years ago from Mike Movius, whose Puget Sound Round Table had identified many, if not all, of the Civil War veterans both North and South who ended their lives and were buried in Washington State. The survivors truly spent the remainder of their lives settling the rest of the country, no matter how many of them were fortunate enough to survive and “went home” to take up their lives in their pre-War communities.
Alexandria National Cemetery. It is small but presaged Arlington. Next door are other cemeteries with Confederate dead. .
I am partial to Poplar Grove down here in Southside Virginia. It holds many of the US sea from the latter stages of the Petersburg Campaign. The NPS recently did a spectacular job restoring a long neglected site.
The cemetery that is most vivid and unexpected for me was a small grave site that contained a number of Confederate dead who had fought at the Battle of Raymond in the Spring of 1863. A few years ago, my wife and I were following the trail of Grant’s campaign to capture Vicksburg, and outside the very Southern town of Raymond was the local graveyard and inside this graveyard was a fenced off section that flew above it was the national flag of the Confederacy. We were stuck by this and we walked over to examine what we thought was an anachronism. The graves were well maintained and the names and the units of the buried were visible. This showed to us that for this town, the past has value.
Any cemetery with one of mine or my wife’s Civil War ancestors. Just last week I took my boys down on a nice little drive to the town of Addison, New York in Steuben County to visit the graves of two of her CW grandfathers we’d never been to before. George Stratton, 188th NY Infantry and Manley D. Crane, 107th NY Infantry. Last year I was astonished to find Manley’s discharges papers and Corporal promotion paper on EBAY. We quickly scarfed them up for around $140. Honestly I wasn’t even searching the guys name, I just completely happened across them by chance. It was unbelievable.
It’s hard not to believe you were meant to have those documents.
It doesn’t a special meaning for me, but I used to live in Annapolis, MD and the National Cemetery there is not well-known, but is a very nice location. During the war, an area just west of Annapolis was established as a place of rendezvous and instruction for Maryland’s Union volunteers and after the initial raising of troops, was designated as Camp Parole, where paroled union soldiers would be sent from Richmond prior to being exchanged. After Vicksburg when Grant stopped exchanges the population at the camp dwindled, but subsequently was used as a place where evacuees from Andersonville were first taken. There was a hospital established nearby (now part of the Naval Academy) to care for the sick and often emaciated troops. The camp laid along the railroad line which linked Annapolis to the B&O Washington Branch at Annapolis Junction making it convenient for the movement of soldiers.
The Lexington Kentucky Confederate cemetery for taking the equestrian monument of General John Hunt Morgan and and displaying it in a respectful setting.