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INFORMATION GENERAL
ARTICLES on THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES Copyright
1998 - 2006
Ellen
Pack
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GRENADA COUNTY. There is a Confederate cemetery in the town of Grenada. It is under the devoted care of the Dixie Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. This spot of earth enwraps the dead bodies of one hundred and seventy soldiers, whose names are unknown, except that of one soldier whose name is pathetically given as” Jacoby.” Most of these died in the hospital, of sickness, and came from the armies of Price, Pemberton and Van Dorn. A few wounded came from Shiloh and Corinth. The following extracts are made from a letter of Mrs. P. S. Dudley, president of the Dixie Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy: “During my first term of office * * * the W. R Barksdale Camp of United Confederate Veterans requested the Dixie Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to take charge of the Confederate graves. It was a pleasure to do this as best we could. Each year we have observed ‘Decoration Day’ with memorial services, covering the graves with flowers and flags. We have desired to enclose the cemetery, and have a fund started for that purpose; but all our recent efforts have been called for to aid in fitting the Beauvoir Home for our needy, living veterans.”Back to Menu
At Jackson there is in the old cemetery a plot of ground, separated from the other part of that cemetery by a chain; this is called the Confederate cemetery. Numbers of soldiers died of disease and wounds while the Confederate army was in Jackson and were buried there. The number is not known, and the names are not preserved. In the battle of Baker’s Creek, or Champion Hill, our dead were buried by the Federals in trenches, no separate graves being made. This spot has been so long neglected that there is nothing now discernible by which the burial trenches can be identified. At Raymond an old graveyard holds the bodies of some Confederate soldiers who died of wounds received in the battle at that place. Those who fell in battle were buried by the Federals on the ground where they were killed and there is now not the slightest trace to indicate their resting place. At Big Black Bridge a number of Confederates were killed and buried nearby; but the same sad thing is true of this place as of Baker’s Creek and Raymond. No mark indicates the place of interment.” At Clinton there is a Confederate cemetery, adjacent to the town cemetery, which is in a neglected condition. My inquiries as to the number of graves, etc., remain unanswered. I learned of the existence of said cemetery and its condition from Dr. Franklin L. Riley. In the old Capitol Square is an imposing Confederate monument, thus described in Goodspeed’s Memoirs of Mississippi: “‘To the Confederate Dead of Mississippi,’ unveiled with splendid ceremonies, June 3d, 1891, as a result of five long years of earnest effort by the ladies of Mississippi, organized June 15, 1886, as the ‘Confederate Monument Association of Mississippi.’ The piece is 64 ft. high from the ground line and is composed of four main parts: the die, a castled chamber, 13 ft. high by 14 ft. wide, fitted to contain a life size statue of Jefferson Davis, which is now in preparation; the plinth of four Egyptian columns, supporting an entablature and (7) seven feet square by nine feet high; the spire shaft, 3 feet square at base, tapering 30 feet to a top two feet square and surmounted by a statue in Italian marble of a Confederate soldier and gun in parade rest, six feet in height. The first public suggestion for such a monument was made by Mrs. Luther Manship, of Jackson, Miss.”Since that time the statue of Jefferson Davis has been placed in the chamber prepared for it.
HOLMES COUNTY. There are two places in this county at which Confederate soldiers were buried, viz.: Goodman and Durance. At Goodman twenty-five or thirty soldiers were buried; they were mostly from Missouri and Tennessee and were members of General Prices command. The following touching letter is from the pen of the honored R. C. Lisped, treasurer of Holes county and formerly a member of the University Grays, Eleventh Mississippi Regiment of Lees brigade at First Manses: “By request I have filled out answers to questions sent by you. Some years ago I was one of a committee of our U. C. V. Camp to look after the soldiers’ graves in Goodman. The ladies of ‘that place deserve credit for enclosing and keeping the cemetery and for placing in it a Confederate monument; all this they have done at their own expense by their own efforts.
Captain John W. Brought, of Rodent, wrote, in 1892, that there was no Confederate cemetery and no monument in his county, but that he and his friends were making an earnest effort to raise funds for the erection of a handsome monument. He said if they could do no more, they would have inscribed the names of. Confederate soldiers on mural tablets in the handsome new Court House. The following clipping from the Memphis Commercial Appeal tells the gratifying story of their success: Faith Miss., Jan. 14th.Back to Menu |