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Honoring the Dead
- March 2002
My very first "experience" in a National Cemetery was waaay back when my high school class visited Washington, D.C. with a trip to Arlington National Cemetery. At the time, being a fairly typical teenager, I wasn't all that impressed. I mean, it was nice and all that and I knew there was a lot of history there, but I still wasn't really impressed with it. I'll get back to Arlington later.
Over the years, I've visited many cemeteries thru my genealogy research, still I wasn't all that impressed.
My interest in the Civil War grew when I transcribed letters written home by my husband's
great-grandfather, Levi McCormick. Levi's nephew, Nathaniel McCormick was wounded near Petersburg, taken to City Point Hospital where he died a few days later. He, as all the others who died, was buried just outside the back of the hospital, had his grave marked with a piece of wood, on which was his name and date of death. At some point all the buried, were disinterred and moved to the City Point National Cemetery and
re-interred. Apparently no one in the family could afford to go down to City Point, VA and bring his body back home. There he lay among his fellow soldiers. Several years ago, we had the occasion to visit the cemetery and were able to find his stone... the name was spelled wrong and his rank was also wrong. It was suggested to us that we get in touch with the VA and they would "make it right." After several months of correspondence, we received the paperwork that needed to be signed by the person who would accept the stone for the cemetery. We talked to a Billie Crenshaw in Richmond, VA and found that she was the one we needed to see. We were going to Richmond for the weekend anyway, so we stopped to see her and she took care of all the paperwork. About 2 months later, the new stone was in place. This time the name was correct. The rank was changed, but still not correct, but we let that go.
City Point National Cemetery has a beautiful entrance gate and a brick wall all around. A flagpole in the center. The stones are perfectly lined up. Many stones with "Unknown" on them, some had a number in front of the Unknown. I was impressed with that cemetery.
I live not far from Fort Delaware and we make the trip out there at least once a year. I bought a book called "They Died at Fort Delaware 1861 - 1865 Confederate, Union and Civilian" Compiled by Joselyn P. Jamison. On a website, I even forget which one now, I offered to do lookups for folks who had ancestors who died at Ft. Delaware. One day I received an inquiry. We had not yet been to Finn's Point National Cemetery in Salem County, New Jersey which is where many of the Confederate dead are buried, so decided to go visit. We drove out the long road to the cemetery, fragmites (tall marsh grass) on both sides of the road. We arrived and had to park in a small parking area just outside the cemetery. There was no big fancy gate or pillars, just a sign that said "Finn's Point National Cemetery." There were two monuments. The first one you see when you enter is a small obelisk engraved with the names of over 130 Union Soldiers' names. Over it is a Grecian style columned cupola. The second one is an 85-foot tall obelisk. There are bronze plates on all four sides of the base containing the names of the over 2,400 Confederate prisoners known to have died at Fort Delaware. The thing that "got to me" was the fact that there are over 2,500 men buried there and there are no stones. Well, there are a few, but they are post-war. No stones, just a large expanse of green grass and some very large evergreens. Supposedly evergreens were used to mark the ends of the "ditches" these men were buried in. As I walked around the cemetery, I started to cry. I was overcome with sadness that there should be so many buried there and all there was to show that were two monuments... That cemetery left a deep impression.
Ok, let's get back to Arlington now. A couple of years ago, we took our youngest son to Manassas for a job interview and when he finished we dropped him and 2 of his sons, our grandsons, off at the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum. We then headed to Arlington Cemetery. I had forgotten just how big the cemetery is. We took one of their jitney tours, as we weren't looking for anything in particular and we had to be back to pickup the kids in about 3 hours. Part way thru our tour, we had to stop and wait for a funeral. We watched as the horse drawn caisson, along with the honor guard, passed by. That was impressive.
Several years ago my husband and I volunteered to put the American flags on the graves of our military dead in two of our local cemeteries for the VFW. Now, if you want to do something that warms the heart and makes you just about as proud as you'll ever be, visit your local VFW or American Legion and volunteer to help put flags out.
I know there are probably many websites similar to the one I'm going to mention here. If you want to send one to me, fine, I can add it to the bottom of this column. Anyway, if you haven't visited the following website, you really must do so, even if you don't have any Civil War Ancestors buried in Montgomery Co., PA. Civil War Burials In Montgomery County, PA http://www.thefinalwaltz.com/ This is one of the most ambitious sites I have seen honoring our Civil War dead. Amy Waltz has done an outstanding job. All the Montgomery County Cemeteries are listed on the site. She has visited many of them and photographed many of the stones. There are many yet to visit, however. The photos are wonderful. Every Montgomery County Civil War burial may not be listed, but I'd be willing to bet the majority are. Needless to say, this project is a labor of love and with that, I'm extremely impressed!
Honor your Military Dead, put a flag on his/her grave... If you can't on your ancestor's grave because you live too far away... put one on another Military dead grave. Their ancestors may be too far away too.
God Bless America!!
City Point National Cemetery
The list of burials
http://www.interment.net/data/us/va/hopewell/citynat/
Finn's Point National Cemetery
The list of burials
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/projects/dbases/finn1.htm
Finn's Point Home Page
There are photos of the two monuments
http://www.users.voicenet.com/~hsimmons/Finn's%20Point%20Website/FinnsPointHomePage.htm
U.S. Civil War Center Cemetery Listings
Each of the cemeteries listed has a searchable database
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/projects/cemindex.htm
Cemetery Records Onlline - Cemeteries & Genealogy
This site lists each state and the National Cemeteries and War Veterans Burials
http://www.interment.net/us/nat/veterans.htm