“In 1862 the Okolona College building known as Rose Gates
College, was taken by the Confederate government as a hospital. It
was a three-story building with about a dozen rude wards surrounding it.
The Presbyterian church was also used for the same purpose, and a number
of soldiers were cared for in private homes.
“While the Confederate Army was operating in Tennessee and Northeast
Mississippi, the sick of the army was sent to the hospital at this place,
as were the wounded from the battles of Shiloh, Corinth and Brice’s Cross
Roads. These soldiers were principally from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia.
These statements are based on information furnished by Mr. R. C. McCoy.
‘Reported by T. C. Kimbrough, attorney-at-law, West Point, Miss.
Confederate Cemeteries in Mississippi.—Jones. 93 Florida, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Between 900 and 1,000 deaths occurred in Chickasaw county, and that number
of bodies lies in the Confederate Soldiers Cemetery, situated in the southwest
portion of Okolona, adjoining the old Citizens’ Cemetery, on the south.
The college building was burned by the Federals on one of their raids,
after it had been abandoned by the Confederacy. The cemetery is enclosed
and the graves have been cared for and yearly decorated with appropriate
ceremonies, by the members of the Okolana Chapter, of the United Daughters
of the Confederacy, who are striving to raise money to erect a fitting
monument to the memory of their sacred dead.”
The following is a list of the known dead from Mississippi buried in
the Okolona Confederate cemetery.
