Civil war cemetaries

Adjoining my hunting club is a small piece of property that contains the burial site of two confederate soldiers buried during the war. There was at one time a small sign on the dirt road but the county road grader took care of that years ago. For sixteen years I have sporadically tried to find some information, if it exists, about the soldiers and the circmustances that led them to be interred there.

Does anyone have any web sites or other data base that could possibly yield some information? What about historical societies etc.. My curiousity is killing me. Old roads through the woods, overgrown sharecropper shacks deep in the woods speak of history and days gone by that fascinate me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

D.A.R.

Check With Your Closest D.a.r. Chapter, Them Gals Take Notes.

Try Googling some of the names on the headstones. There is an old cemetary in the woods next to me with a Revelutionary Soldier buried in it. I found a bunch of info on him by using Google.

packrat said:

Check With Your Closest D.a.r. Chapter, Them Gals Take Notes.

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Try the nearest Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Camp. They might have more information on Civil War soldiers than the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The Snakeman

I am member of the SCV. Feel free to PM me any info you have and we can go from there. [><]


That marker can be put back up also if it was a state marker.

Like Crowe said Check with your local Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp. You can pull up their main web page at www.scv.org . Our camp reclaimed and old Cemetary from undergrowth and trees a few years back. It had two veterans and some other graves with wooden markers. It was so overgrown and thick you could literally walk within 15 yards of it and never know it existed. We were afraid logging crews would accidentally destroy it when they came in to cut timber.

I have one on one of my places too. He was not killed in the war I do not think but it says he was in the war. It is one single grave out in the middle of nowhere. There is an old home site near by but I am sure nobody else knows this grave is there.

Randy said:

I have one on one of my places too. He was not killed in the war I do not think but it says he was in the war. It is one single grave out in the middle of nowhere. There is an old home site near by but I am sure nobody else knows this grave is there.

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Then it needs to be marked. The federal government will provide a headstone. If it can be shown he is indeed a civil war soldier. You DEFINTELY need to contact your local SCV. Or contact me with any info you have and I will contact them for you. [><]

Black Crowes said:

Then it needs to be marked. The federal government will provide a headstone. If it can be shown he is indeed a civil war soldier. You DEFINTELY need to contact your local SCV. Or contact me with any info you have and I will contact them for you. [><]

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It has a headstone on it now. Some guy named COX.

Randy said:

It has a headstone on it now. Some guy named COX.

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That's all it says is COX ? No first name, regiment, brigade or anything ? Birth date, date of death ?

Black Crowes said:

That's all it says is COX ? No first name, regiment, brigade or anything ? Birth date, date of death ?

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It has both his names and his birth and death as well as his regiment.

Thanks for all the information guys. I am going to be up there all next week finishing out the season and will bust some brush trying to find any markers. The old rock cairns are there and one of the older locals said at one time there had been some small headstones. Thanks again for the help.

cematery

I am yankee but those soldiers should be honored by preserving their resting place.god bless them.and you for caring.

A stone provided by the Daughters would look like this if there there is only a small, flat stone already there. My GrGrGrandfather.


If there is a pretty good upright stone present, the Daughters will provide one like this. My GGGrandad's best friend and Brother-in-law.


Those who hunt in S. Taylor County, those graves are about the first ones you'll see behind Mt. Pisgah Church, right off Crossroads School Road. They were two of the founders of the Church in 1868.

A sort of funny related story . . . . a few months back, I joined a new tractor forum. It really hasn't gotten off the ground, and I haven't even checked it in a month or two. Anyhow, one of the administrators started a thread on Civil War ancestors. He said his grandfather was a Confederate Veteran. He was from Kentucky. He posted a picture of his grandfather's stone, similar to the one I posted. Only problem, the stone had the Federal Shield instead of the Southern Cross. It gave a unit designation and of course his name. I pm'ed the guy and told him he might want to check his facts. He was adamant. Said he had the papers, and he evidently did not want to hear anymore. I went on a website, and sure enough, his old grandaddy had been a Federal soldier in a Kentucky Infantry unit. How could something like this be passed erronously down through the years? If he actually knew better, was he ashamed? Anyhow, he very soon took down the pictures and his thread.

these are great stories. My family(pre war between the states) house is in athens on display. The old farm consisted of over 1,000 acres in oglethorpe co. outside of maxes. As a youth we hunted that old farm then owned by my aunt. Several times we found sunken places in the soil, sometimes wire was around these sites. At first we thought they were old war graves, Now it seems it wuz slave graves. Pappa smith had a few, and a couple of years ago some bedwetter family member, placed 7 stones inside the family cemetery, carved only s g. Not trying to be smart, the thought of papa smith burying slaves in the family cemetary, he is still rolling. Those slaves were buried out in the fields, get over it!

Great thread,

My g g grandfather Conrad Sellers,died at a hospital in Kingston Ga during the Civil War.
There is documentation that proves he is buried there along with over 200 other CSA dead in graves that are marked with stones but without inscriptions.
Due to this we werent able to get a govt. issued headstone similar to what many CSA graves have.

Family members raised money and purchased a stone for a memorial and placed it on the same grave plot as Conrads son.
The link is a presentation of the events of the dedication day when the stone was placed.

http://www.lrwma.com/events/sellers/sellers.htm

Good Gosh Milkman
Chils are still crawlin me...
Thank you Sir for posting this .
Your GG grandfather is proud of you all Im sure

My GG Grandfather
too was a Confederate I would
realy like to do this for him .
He is burried up in Gravel Springs Bapt cemetary
in Gwynette Co Ga.

Thanks again Sir for posting this..

God bless,
BCW

Thanks Box,

It is fitting that since his resting place doesnt bear his name at least there is a stone in his memory here, back home where he came from.

So many in this war and other wars were never properly laid to rest.

Great story Milkman. Reminds me somewhat of the account of my own GGreat Grandfather, Francis Marion Rackley. As one might guess, by his having that name, that he was a native S. Carolinian.

He enlisted in the Confederate Army early in the Civil War (1862), and was part of a Regiment that was attached to General Bragg's army that made a swing into Kentucky in a misguided effort to influence Kentucky to give up their neutral stance and support the Confederacy.

Braggs army was encamped at Perryville, KY for a period, then decided to withdraw in response to an advancing Union Army. Pvt. Rackley having become ill and weak from disentary was physically unable to keep up with the hasty midnight night retreat.

He was taken prisoner by the advancing Union Army and placed in a Union prison at Louisville KY. Apparently his illness worsened, requiring his hospitalization at a hospital in Louisville. He died on December 7, 1862 and was buried in a one acre plot in the vast Cave Hill Cemetery. The one acre plot was purchased by a Confederate Sympathizer for the express purpose of providing burial for Confederate prisoners.

At this point the plot thickens. Pvt. Rackley's death was correctly recorded, along with a listing of about a dozen other Confederates in the daily Louisville newspaper.

When his tombstone was engraved, his name was incorrectly listed as Pvt. F. Backley, as opposed to F. M. Rackley. The date of death was the same as shown in the daily newspaper.

In the meantime his Widow (my GGreatmother) lived for an additional 57 years without knowing what had happened to her soldier husband. All she knew of him was contained in three letters that are still in possession of the family.

About thirty years ago I learned that a Rackley had been among those imprisoned in Louisville. My wife and I made a trip to Louisville to research the matter in attempt to verify if this was indeed my Rackley.

We located the one acre plot of Confederate graves and found the weathered headstone of one F. Backley. We were dissappointed that there seemed to be no Rackley.

We then went to the large public library there and spent at least four hours searching thru microfilm of the local newspapers of that period. My Wife screamed when she discovered the death notice of F. M. Rackley who died on Dec. 7, 1862. We immediately went to the Cemetery to report the discrepancy on the tombstone.

After presenting the Historical Society with all of the documentation that was available, after a five year delay, permission was finally granted to replace the stone to correctly identify the Georgia soldier. We were delighted to be able to do so. We were informed that mistakes of this nature were common during that period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Heartland_Offensive

great reading Mr Holt! What part of Carolina did the Rackley's hail from?