The Civil War in Georgia: A New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion

COMMEMORATIVE SITES AND ACTIVITIES

COMMEMORATIVE SITES AND ACTIVITIES Tour buses at Stone Mountain, June 29, 1929. Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection, cob162b. Cemeteries 207 } Cemeteries Both during and after the Civil War, Georgians faced the task of burying the Confederate and Union soldiers who died within the state’s bounds. Many of the fallen were later reburied either in existing cemeteries or in new ones specifically dedicated to Civil War soldiers. Nearly every sizable cemetery in Georgia contains individual graves of Confederate soldiers or veterans who died after the war was over, and several have entire sections devoted to Civil War dead. A few cemeteries hold only Confederate soldiers killed in the war; the Confederate Cemetery at Resaca was the first of these to be established in Georgia. Approximately 120,000 Georgians served the Confederacy, and many thousands of them died over the course of the conflict, with estimates varying from around 11,000 to 25,000. Within the state itself, several major battles and numerous skirmishes left both Union and Confederate soldiers dead near farms, homes, hospitals, and towns. While many soldiers died on battlefields, many more died in hospitals from wounds and disease. Though most of the dead in Georgia were Confederates, a significant number of Union soldiers died as well. Such was the case at Andersonville Prison, where the Union dead were buried on site because of an inability either to preserve corpses or to move the dead. Many fallen soldiers remained unidentified. The corpses were often very deteriorated after battle as the result of wounds and decomposition, and many were initially buried in mass graves near where they fell. For major engagements, such as those at Chickamauga, Resaca, and Atlanta, bodies were moved to nearby existing cemeteries or to new ones created just after the fighting. Stone monuments or obelisks were often constructed in these cemeteries to honor both individuals and full companies and regiments that suffered significant losses. In addition, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (udc), which formed a Georgia chapter in 1895, placed iron crosses of honor on many graves throughout the state. Later, soldiers’ resting places were officially Historic African American burial grounds in Georgia are being preserved in a variety of ways. Examples of cemetery preservation include the separate burial sections in the city cemeteries of Decatur and Atlanta (Oakland Cemetery); Porterdale, owned and maintained by the city of Columbus; Behavior, on Sapelo Island, overseen by the Hog Hammock community; and Laurel Grove-South, the major African American cemetery in Savannah. —From online entry “Cemetery Preservation” WWW.GEORGIAENCYCLOPEDIA.ORG 208 The War’s Legacy: Commemorations marked with regulation government headstones, noting their service to the Confederacy. Kingston and Cassville Cemeteries Each cemetery in Georgia has its own history relating to local events and politics during and after the Civil War. Kingston and Cassville, both in Bartow County, for example, established Confederate cemeteries after intense fighting in that area in May 1864, during the early part of the Atlanta campaign. There are 250 unknown Confederate and 2 Union soldiers buried in Kingston. The Cassville Cemetery holds approximately 300 unknown Confederate soldiers (including a general) who died in eight local hospitals. They were buried in the town cemetery after Union general William T. Sherman’s troops set fire to Cassville. The udc placed marble headstones on all the Cassville graves in 1899. Marietta Cemeteries Marietta boasts both a national cemetery and a Confederate cemetery. The national cemetery contains around 10,000 Union soldiers, only 7,045 of whom are known, who died during the Atlanta campaign. The Confederate cemetery, established in 1863, is the largest of its kind in the state. It holds 3,000 soldiers who died in local hospitals, in combat during the Battle of Chickamauga or the Atlanta campaign, or in an 1863 train wreck that occurred north of Marietta. In 1902 wooden markers at the Confederate cemetery were replaced by marble headstones . The separate cemeteries in Marietta were created because local civilians objected to enemies lying together in death. A prominent Marietta businessman, Henry Green Cole, sought a combined Confederate and Union cemetery and donated land toward the project. When local officials objected, Cole gave the land to the federal government to be used for the burial of Union casualties only, and it was designated as such in 1866. Oakland Cemetery Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, established in 1850, has 6,900 Confederates buried in its grounds, including 5 generals...