The Little Graveyard on the Ridge

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

Perhaps a quarter mile off the road, a small country graveyard sits at the top of a little ridge. When I spotted that old family cemetery not long after we moved here, I decided that, "one of these days," I was going to walk through it. But time flew by, as it does, and so it was five years later, when I finally stopped one day at the house below the cemetery and asked permission to visit.

The silver-haired lady who answered my knock was pleased about my interest in the graveyard. She walked to the pasture gate with me, showed me the least "washed-out" route to take up the hillside, and cautioned my sidekicks, Keely and Isaac, to beware the poison ivy around the graveyard fence.

We bounced up the hill on a trail that was obviously more traveled by cattle than vehicles. As we pulled up to the cemetery, I saw immediately that it was well-maintained and very tidy.  An overgrowth of vines had made the fence into a solid wall of tangled foliage, but the grass inside was neatly cut, and the gate was in good repair. No graves were embarrassed by fallen headstones or weatherbeaten artificial flowers.

Photographs by Melissa Wiesse.

Many of the surnames on the stones were from a half-dozen families. I recognized some names as possible ancestors of families who still lived in Christian County. The dates on the stones spanned nearly two centuries, from a birth in 1778 to a death in l971.  Many of the tombstones stated that the loved one was "Asleep in Jesus." One man was a Confederate soldier. Another was born in County Down, Ireland. In all, there were 50 or 60 graves.

I decided that the cemetery was officially established in the 1860s or 1870s. Perhaps there were already unmarked family graves there when the first graves with tombstones were made. Looking over the cemetery fence from the hillside, I tried to imagine the valley when the blacktop road was a dirt trail, the fences were made of split rail, and the log cabins were marked by plumes of smoke. Surely the cemetery's site was chosen for its fine view in addition to its high-and-dry location.

Photo by Tony Alter.

A majestic old oak grew in one corner. The ground under it was covered with acorns and early-fallen leaves. A half-dozen squirrels were shocked, just shocked, when we interrupted their nut harvest with our presence.

Near the center of the cemetery, a huge stump bore witness to another tree that once grew there. It was a good six feet in diameter at its widest point. This estimate was provided by Keely who stretched out full length across it. At one time, this giant's branches must have shaded most of the little cemetery.

Keely and Isaac were impatient to return to modern life well before I finished reading the stones. When we finally drove back down the hill and closed the gate to the pasture, the little lady came out to talk again. She had been waiting for us. "Did you see anyone you knew up there?" she wanted to know.

I told her that I had recognized some of the family names, and she said that most of the people in the cemetery were from her husband's family. Had I seen this gravestone and that one? One young fellow had commited suicide after World War I. Her husband's mother was the young woman buried with twin babies. Another man and his wife had lived in a big log house that she remembered from childhood. She knew the life story beneath each headstone.

I commented on the huge tree stump, and she told me that it had been another oak tree. It had fallen in the cemetery during a windstorm, but her son had cleaned it up. Then she began to talk about her great fear -- would the cemetery be cared for in future years? Her son, in his late fifties, did all the upkeep. It seemed he was the main person who was interested. Though most of the graves "belonged" to families who still lived in the county, no one else helped with the maintenance. She had buried her husband in town a few years ago because she feared his grave wouldn't be tended up on the hillside.

Photo by Justin A. Wilcox

The thought of brambles and trees taking over the graveyard grieved this lady. I was touched by her desire to honor the graves of her husband's people. Talking to her was a memorable and moving experience. Most of my visits to old graveyards don't include the opportunity to speak with someone who has a personal connection to the people buried there.

When I got home that day, I wrote a short account of my visit to the cemetery on the ridge. A few days ago, I stumbled upon that little story in some old computer files, and I thought that the things I had written still spoke to my heart. I decided to edit it a little and share it. That's the story behind this story.

Related photos on Flickr:
Squirrels in cemeteries
Gravestone details
Historic cemeteries

Video about the Rose Church

Community of Rose, Nebraska

Here's a short video about the church I attended during most of my growing-up years. I went to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School in the basement, played on the swings in the church yard, and took piano lessons in the parsonage. I know the people who talk about the church in the video. They are the parents of my childhood church friends.

It's so good to see that the Rose community is working together to preserve the little church!

I know that I have a few photos of the Rose Church that I took while visiting up there in 2002, but apparently I've never scanned them. The photo below shows the Rose Cemetery, right across the road from the church. Like the church, it has served the people of Rose for many years, and it continues to play an important role in the community.

Affordable Alternative Grave Marker

Dignity Marker© for unmarked family graves

Dennis and I both have great-grandparents whose graves are unmarked. We have talked from time to time about getting headstones for them. It would fulfill the wishes of our parents as well as honor the memories of our great-grandparents. However, four granite or marble headstones would be a considerable investment for us.

We are interested in a solution from Ron Yates, a family tree researcher with roots in Crawford County, Indiana. Ron has an extensive genealogy website that includes my great-great grandmother Susana Jane McCleary (1848-1906.) That's how I began an internet acquaintance with him. 

Ron and other Yates family members have struggled to meet the need for dozens of grave markers in old cemeteries in Crawford County. So many graves needed attention that it was impossible to provide a marble or granite headstone for each one.

The search for an alternative memorial led the Yates family to an Illinois manufacturer, who helped them develop the Dignity Marker©. It's an attractive plaque, made of HPDE, a strong, durable synthetic that is used for plastic lumber, landfill liners, hard hats, water pipes, and many other products. It is available for $45 per plaque plus shipping (discounts for quantity orders.)

The Dignity Marker©, side view.

Testing the fit before packing
the holes of the block with dirt.

The Dignity Marker© is adhered to a standard concrete block (16 in. x 8 in. x 6 in.) with Liquid Nails Extreme Temperatures and Conditions (LN-201) construction adhesive. The block is then installed at the grave site, either flush with the ground or upright, depending on personal preferences and the cemetery rules. Any able-bodied person could do the job alone.

Ron wrote to me that they will be fabricating and installing 30 or more of these markers in April at the Yates Union Chapel Cemetery near Grantsburg, Indiana. What an achievement that will be!

A newly installed Dignity Marker©.

I told Ron that I might purchase the plaques, even though I didn't know when we would be able to make the trip to install them. He suggested that we could ask a local historical or genealogical society to recommend a reputable handyman, pay him for a couple of hours of work, and request a digital photo of the installed markers.

Dignity Marker© is not a big company. Rather, these are family genealogists who are sharing a simple solution to a real need. I am so impressed that I decided to help spread the word about this product. There are so many situations where an inexpensive grave marker is needed. (This post is not a paid advertisement!)

Please see the Dignity Marker© website for much more information than I've given here. They also have a Facebook page with lots of photos.

Thanks to Ron Yates and Dignity Marker© for permission to use the photographs in this post.

Willoughby Cemetery: Homesteader's Rest

An old settlers graveyard in Republic County, Kansas

Willoughby Cemetery, near Agenda, Kansas

One hot day last July, my brother, my sister, and I drove up to Republic County, Kansas, and found Willoughby Cemetery. It's named for W. H. Willoughby, the man who donated one corner of his homestead to be a community burying ground.

W. H. Willoughby (my great-great-granduncle-by-marriage) was a preacher and one of the first settlers of Elk Creek Township in Republic County.  He homesteaded on Elk Creek in the late 1860s, along with a small group of brothers, cousins, and  "in-laws." This group of original settlers included  my great-great-grandfather Ashbel Mapes. Ashbel and W. H. Willoughby were brother-in-laws: Ashbel was a brother of  W. H.'s wife Rachel Mapes Willoughby.

My gr-grandfather's Charles Leslie Hill's original gravestone.
There's also a new stone for Charles and Lilly Hill  (at right.)

My family has several graves in Willoughby Cemetery. Great-great-grandmother, Martha Vining Mapes (wife of Ashbel Mapes), is said to be there, but we didn't see her grave.  I don't know if it is unmarked, or marked with a uninscribed stone, or the words on her tombstone have weathered away. Or maybe her stone is hidden by a clump of bushes or flowers.

Great-grandfather Charles Leslie Hill is buried there, beside his first wife, Lillie Mapes, who was a daughter of Ashbel and Martha Mapes. When Lillie died of "catarrhal fever" leaving three little children without a mother, Charles married her younger sister Lana Mapes, my great grandmother.

My gr -gr -grandaunt, Rachel Ann Mapes,
She was W. H. Willoughby's wife.

Several other Mapes family members are buried in Willoughby Cemetery, including  Rachel Mapes Willoughby,  and several of Ashbel and Martha Vining Mapes's ten children: James Mapes, Nellie Mapes Boyer, Lillie Mapes Hill (as already mentioned), and probably Lucy Artimus Mapes Wharton (very likely, but not yet proven.)

Also, little Clarence Hill, a great-uncle who died at the age of 3 years and a few days, is buried there. His grave is probably at the foot of his mother's Lillie Mapes Hill's grave, where a small, uninscribed stone stands.

 While we were there, I tried to photograph all of the gravestones in the cemetery that were legible or at least partly so. I planned to post them to Find-A-Grave when I got back home.

When I began editing the photos and researching the names in Willoughby cemetery, I learned that a surprising number of people there were related to my relatives in one way or another.

All of them, related or not, were from neighbor families and many were homesteaders. Some came to Kansas from New York, Ohio, Indiana, and other states, and others were immigrants from foreign countries.Their life stories were just as interesting as my own family's. (And I don't mean that they were all saints! One of them even served time for stealing chickens.)

Intrigued by their histories, I decided that I would include at least a few sentences about the life of each person in Willoughby Cemetery in his or her Find A Grave memorial. Achieving that goal has been an interesting, engrossing project. I've found obituaries for many of them in the old Republic County newspapers. For others, I've constructed a short biography from census data and other sources.

While searching the old newspapers for the names on the stones, I've found about twenty obituaries for people who were buried in Willoughby, but do not seem to have grave markers (or their grave markers are illegible.) So, I created Find-A-Grave memorials for them with their obituaries, so their stories can be retold and remembered, too.

Willoughby Cemetery in Republic County
near Agenda, Kansas

I have done about 40 memorials so far, and I still have about 25 more photographs and a few more obituaries to work through. Some of the stones in the remaining photos are badly weathered, but maybe I can figure them out with the help of Ancestry.com, Family Search, and the old Republic County newspapers.

A shopkeeper in Agenda, a little village a few miles away, told us that W. H. Willoughby gave the cemetery land with one condition -- that no one would ever have to pay to be buried there. No burial plots in Willoughby Cemetery were ever to be sold. The community still honors that promise, she added.

The first burial in Willoughby Cemetery (that I know of)
was little Margaret Miller who died in 1871.

These Willoughby children were a nephew and a niece of
W.H. Willoughby, who founded Willoughby cemetery to
serve the needs of the Elk Creek homesteader community.
Rest in peace, little ones.

Autumn Images

Seen in Christian County, KY

There's plenty of time to take a picture, when following a buggy uphill. They are extremely slow, but I never pass them on a hill, even if I'm in a terrible hurry. I figure that it's better to be a few minutes late than to risk a collision. However, I often see impatient drivers who pass without a clue of what's coming in the other lane.

Tobacco is curing in the barns of Christian County, KY. This old barn, built right beside a back road, is always closed tight, with a "No Trespassing" sign on the doors. When I drove by last week, I was surprised to see its doors opened wide.

This clump of trees in the middle of a Christian County field probably marks an old family graveyard. It's sad that so many old cemeteries receive no care at all, but when the families are unavailable, unable, or uninterested, the burden of upkeep falls on the landowner. Most farmers adopt an attitude of benign neglect, and nature takes its course.

Autumn color in Hopkinsville (KY). Some people around the county have reported heavy frost, but we haven't had a killing frost at our house yet. I still have impatiens blooming, though their days are surely numbered.

And who's that crowding into the picture with the impatiens? Why, it's Sophie, of course, doing her best to be the center of attention. I'm in the process of building an elaborate doghouse for her. It has two rooms, and it's better insulated than our house is! I am not a very fast carpenter, so it's still going to require a couple more days of work. And it's so heavy that I'm thinking we might put it in the truck and drive it to the carport, instead of trying to carry it.

Missing Confederate Graves at Hopkinsville's Riverside Cemetery

A chance to set the record straight

I've written several times in the past about Camp Alcorn in Hopkinsville, KY, where about 300 Confederate soldiers died of disease and exposure during the Civil War. If this topic interests you, you'll enjoy the well-researched article at the link below:

  Confederate Tragedy at Hopkinsville and the Missing Graves

This link leads to a Rootsweb military page about the Camp Alcorn burials in a potters field in Riverside Cemetery, and the later re-burial of  "unknown" Confederate soldiers.

The author of this paper is William Meacham, Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong. He lives in Hong Kong, as you might imagine, but he has family ties to Christian County, KY.  Mr. Meacham's research indicates that 72 or more Confederate soldiers are still lying in unmarked graves in Riverside Cemetery.

I am a "damyankee" transplanted in Christian County about 20 years ago, and most (though not all!) of my ancestors fought on the Union side of the Civil War. But, despite my own leanings, I think that we in Christian County should locate and mark the graves of these Confederate soldiers if we can. It is the decent thing to do, especially considering the mishandling of important records and the mistakes made with the Camp Alcorn graves in the past.

Find A Grave

Locating the burial places of ancestors

Graveyard, location unknown. Image source: fromoldbooks.org

Due to my recent obsession with family history, I've become a frequent visitor to Find A Grave, a free online repository of over 57 million grave records. Obviously, they don't have a record for everyone  -- there have been an untold number of us humans! -- but I have found burial information and even a few tombstone photos for some of my ancestors there.

The Scotten Cemetery, found

Emery Scotten was Great-grandmother Emma Hart's grandfather -- in other words, my 3x-great-grandfather. He was born in 1792 in Maryland and died in 1867 in Franklin County, Indiana.  I typed his name, places, and dates into a Find A Grave search and learned that Great-grandfather Scotten is buried in the Scotten Cemetery in Franklin County, along with his wife Mary S. and a dozen other family members and in-laws.

The Scotten Cemetery is described as "marooned in a cornfield on 200 North about 3/4 of a mile west of 600 West. The burial ground is recognizable only by a wooded area on the south side of 200 North, and the stones can only be seen during the winter months when foliage is gone." The last burial there was in 1878.

I can almost see the Scotten Cemetery in my mind, because there's an old graveyard like that, marooned in a pasture, just a mile from my house. When I hiked out there to look at it, on a winter day some years ago, I could hardly see the gravestones under all the fallen tree branches and tangled vines.  I would have been afraid to go there in the summer because of snakes!

It is sad to think that the Scotten Cemetery is not tended at all, but I do feel closer to that family, now that I know where they are buried. It should be quiet there most of the time, except for the birds and squirrels and rabbits -- and the snakes. I hope the wild violets and roses bloom on their graves. Maybe there are even a few daffodils that still come up in the springtime.

Helping Find A Grave

Find A Grave works because of volunteers -- people who donate their time and effort to research, key, and upload burial information. In many cases, the volunteers have gone to remote graveyards themselves and recorded the names and dates on old tombstones. The site is funded through advertising, donations, and a gift shop. You can read about the founder and staff on the "whois" page.

I've visited quite a few old graveyards in Christian County and I have a few dozen or more photographs of tombstones that interested me. I can't upload them to Find A Grave unless I know the names of the cemeteries where I photographed them -- and I don't remember.

However, I could go through my gravestone photos and search for those people's names and dates on Find A Grave. Then, if any of them were already listed in some cemetery in Christian County, KY, I could add my tombstone photo to the burial record. I know that someone, sometime, would be really happy to find it.

Camp Alcorn Memorials in Hopkinsville, KY

Graves of Confederate soldiers in Riverside Cemetery

Cemetery and census records at the Christian County library

Recently, I received an email from a gentleman with Christian County (KY) roots who works at a Hong Kong university. He asked some questions about the Camp Alcorn Confederate graves in Hopkinsville, which he is researching. I didn't know the answers, but I looked up some things at the Christian County library and sent him the information that I was able to find.

Two memorials to Confederate soldiers

While finding the information this gentleman wanted and corresponding with him, I learned more about the two Confederate memorials at Riverside Cemetery. Those memorials are:
   1) The Latham Confederate Monument to unknown Confederate soldiers, erected during the 1880s by John C. Latham, a wealthy New York banker and Hopkinsville native, and
   2)The Camp Alcorn Cemetery, where 293 Confederate soldiers are memorialized with individual gravestones.

Latham Confederate Monument imagined and realized

The Latham Confederate Monument has an interesting history. Mr. John C. Latham was a Hopkinsville boy who went to New York and became wealthy but never forgot his hometown. He gave many donations of land and money to make Hopkinsville a better place, even though he no longer lived here.

The booklet, The Story of a Monument: Memorial of the Unveiling of the Monument to the Unknown Confederate Dead, May 19, 1887, at Hopkinsville, Ky, tells the story of the Latham Confederate Monument. In 1886, John C. Latham visited his father's grave at Riverside Cemetery. A friend pointed out an overgrown area in the old part of the cemetery where the Camp Alcorn soldiers were buried.  Mr. Latham, a Confederate Army veteran and a good-hearted man, was troubled that their graves were unmarked and untended.

The Latham Confederate Monument

With an admirable spirit of reconciliation, Latham proposed to donate a monument honoring all unknown Civil War soldiers buried at Riverside Cemetery. However, the unknown Union soldiers had already been moved to the military cemetery at Fort Donelson. Thus, Latham dedicated the monument to unknown Confederate soldiers.

Latham bought a large triangular site, on a high spot in the new part of the cemetery. The graves of the Camp Alcorn soldiers were opened, and such remains as could be found were moved to the new site. A large granite monument with four bronze plaques was made in Maine and shipped to Hopkinsville. It was dedicated and presented to the City of Hopkinsville on May, 19, 1887.

Discovery of the notebook

Another decade went by. Then, in 1899, Mr. Harry C. Gant, president of the Bank of Hopkinsville, was going through an old desk at the bank. In it, he discovered a notebook that had belonged to George K. Anderson, a Confederate soldier from Cotton Gin, Texas. It contained 213 deceased soldiers' names, and for each, the location in the cemetery where he was buried. Also, the record included 15 unnamed soldiers of Camp Alcorn and their final resting places. Apparently when Anderson's unit left Hopkinsville, the notebook was placed at the bank for safekeeping -- and there it stayed, forgotten for almost 40 years.

Of course, by the time the notebook was found in 1899, the remains of the soldiers had already been moved from their original graves. They had been reburied together in a circle around the Latham Confederate Monument, making it impossible to assign a name to any gravesite or set of bones.

Tombstones erected by Sons of Confederate Veterans

John C. Latham's goal of giving these fallen soldiers the dignity that they deserve was completed by the Camp Alcorn Cemetery memorial, erected by a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It honors 293 Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Alcorn with individual markers that give their names, military information, and dates of death if known.

Gravestones at the Camp Alcorn cemetery memorial

I don't know all of the sources the Sons of Confederate Veterans used in ascertaining the names of the 293 soldiers. (According to a newspaper report at the time of the discovery of the notebook, it revealed the identities of 101 men. This report seems to be in error because the notebook actually contained the names and burial sites of 227 men.) I also don't know if the tombstones were erected on the site of the original cemetery.

When I looked through the Camp Alcorn information in the Riverside Cemetery book. I was saddened to see that many of the dead Kentucky soldiers had enlisted in Hopkinsville. I suppose they were local fellows who came to town and signed up with the Confederate Army. They moved into the camp, and soon thereafter, fell ill and died from one of the several deadly diseases that were circulating through the troops that winter.

Note: On 3/15/2011, corrections were made, regarding the number of names in the notebook.

----------------------

If you're interested in Camp Alcorn, you might want to look back at these Prairie Bluestem posts:

• Camp Alcorn in Hopkinsville, Kentucky looks at some of the Civil War correspondence sent to, from, and about Camp Alcorn.
• Civil War Graves at Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, Kentucky has photos of the memorials at Riverside Cemetery for Confederate soldiers  buried there.
• The First Presbyterian Church in Hopkinsville and other Hopkinsville churches were used as hospitals for the Confederate soldiers who fell ill at camp.
• More About Riverside Cemetery takes a closer look at the John C. Latham memorial to the unknown Confederate soldiers who are buried in Riverside.
• A Walk in Riverside Cemetery describes the first time I saw the Camp Alcorn memorials in Riverside Cemetery.

Duff Valley

Southern Rock County, Nebraska

Here are a few photos of the Duff Valley in Rock County, Nebraska. This is the neighborhood where I grew up. I took these pictures during the several quick visits I've made there in the last decade or so.

About 26 miles south of Bassett, Nebraska, a gravel road runs west from the highway, over the Adams Hill, through the Duff area and on through the Sandhills to Long Pine. When I visited Duff in 2000, this sign (above photo) marked the turn-off from Highway 183. Some of the names on the sign are familiar to me as new generations of old neighbor families, and some names are new to me.

This photo of the Duff School, my grade school alma mater, was taken during our visit in 2000. The people in the photo are Aaron Rowse, my daughter Keely, my son Isaac, and me. I was surprised that the school building was so small! I remembered it as a larger structure. The Duff School was located 3 miles west and 1 mile south of Highway 183.

We drove through the Duff area again in early June of 2002. I was surprised to see all the Canada geese on this meadow, along the Duff road about 3-1/2 miles west of Highway 183.

The Duff Cemetery had just been cleaned for Memorial Day, and it really looked nice. I hadn't remembered it as such a pretty little country cemetery. However, it was a bit of a shock to see tombstones for people whom I used to know. The Duff Cemetery is located about 3-1/2 miles west of Highway 183, or about 1/2 mile east of Duff (point A) as shown on this Google map.


I was surprised to see that many of the cottonwood trees in Duff Valley (and throughout Rock County) are dying. They live about 100 years, so it's been about that long since many of them were planted by early settlers.

This is the gate of the ranch where I grew up. The ranch buildings (photo below) are a little over a mile from this gate, by the road. The buildings have deteriorated, especially the big barn. The ranch has had several owners since we lived there, and times have been hard. I don't know if anyone is living there now or not.

The Duff Church, which I wrote about recently, was 4 miles west from Highway 183. To reach our place (above), we turned south at the Duff Church, and followed the county road and then the ranch road for about another 2 miles.

These photos were taken a few miles west/northwest of Duff. These wetlands are probably some of the headwaters of the Skull Creek that runs through the Duff Valley. Actually, these scenes are closer to the former post office of Spragg (opened 1888, closed 1912) than to the former post office of Duff (opened 1886, closed 1901, and open again 1903-1953).

Related:
Some Memories of Duff, Nebraska
Posts on this blog that mention Duff, Nebraska

Camp Alcorn at Hopkinsville, Kentucky

A Confederate States Army camp near Hopkinsville during the Civil War

I've mentioned before that Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is the final resting place of about 300 Confederate soldiers who died of measles, dysentery, tuberculosis, pneumonia, typhoid, and other illnesses while camped at Camp Alcorn during the Civil War.

I was quite interested when I stumbled across some correspondence to, from, and about Camp Alcorn in an old book that has been digitized by Google.

The book is The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. It was published in 1902 by the U.S. Government Printing Office, with input from many authors and sources, including the United States War Dept, United States Congress. and the United States War Records Office.

I've written the following brief history of Camp Alcorn based mostly on Confederate letters that are recorded in this book...

How Camp Alcorn was established

After a number of skirmishes with Union troops in this part of Kentucky, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston and Brigadier General Felix Kirk Zollicoffer took Bowling Green in the fall of 1861. Meanwhile Confederate General Simon Buckner occupied Hopkinsville.

These victories led to a Confederate plan to create a "Kentucky Line." The idea was to stop the Union forces in Kentucky, and thus to prevent the Union from gaining control of rivers and railroads that led to Nashville, Tennessee, and beyond. Also, there were iron furnaces of importance to the Confederacy along the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers of western Kentucky.

Shortly after taking Hopkinsville, General Buckner was promoted and moved to Central Division of Kentucky headquarters to Bowling Green. Buckner left Brigadier General J. L. Alcorn in camp near Hopkinsville with a brigade of Mississippi volunteers and two small regiments. Alcorn had brought these troops from Mississippi as part of a response from that state to a request for 10,000 men for sixty days service in Kentucky.

Alcorn was supposed to defend the Cumberland River and the railroad bridge over it at Clarksville, Tennessee, from an overland attack from the north/northeast. However, widespread illness among his soldiers limited his ability to do this job.

General Alcorn returns to Mississippi after escorting the troops to Kentucky and setting up camp at Hopkinsville

On October 19, 1861, Alcorn wrote to General Buckner, to give a scouting report and to inform him of the health situation in camp.

My command, after furnishing nurses for the sick, is reduced to a battalion. It appears that every man in my camp will directly be down with measles. The thought of a movement in my present condition is idle. I am not more than able to patrol the town.

Source: Letter from Alcorn to Buckner, Oct. 19, 1861 (pp. 464-465)

At the end of the letter, he requested to be relieved of command at Hopkinsville so he could return to Mississippi.

[T]he cause for my continuance no longer exists in force sufficient to detain me. I wish to leave for Mississippi; and ask your permission to fix the 27th instant as the day for my departure. This post is an important one, and should not be commanded by one who has not the confidence or is distasteful to the Government at Richmond. My service as brigadier-general of Mississippi is due that State only. If the Confederate Government wished me, I would be appointed. This not being done, I am an intruder. My self-respect, my own honor, is dearer to me than country or life itself. The hope of being able to make an early movement has lured me; that hope dissipated, common decency requires me to leave this command. Besides, to stay here and labor and toil as I do, struggling with disease and death, to be superseded presently, or, if continued, to be a mere interloper, a nondescript, every impulse of my nature says, "No; death first," My command will complain, but this will soon be hushed, for now they are bound. I shall leave with them my son, a captain of a company, as hostage that my heart is with them.

In conclusion, I thank you most sincerely for the kind manner in which you have treated me since my return to my native heath, and beg that you will have some one to take my command, if not before, on the day indicated. Do not neglect this, I beg you.

Source: Letter from Alcorn to Buckner, October 19, 1861 (pp. 464-465)

My research leads me to believe that General Alcorn survived the war and later became a U.S. senator from Mississippi.

General Tilghman assumes command and learns of conditions at Camp Alcorn

Shortly after Alcorn requested permission to go home, Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman was assigned to command the troops at Camp Alcorn. Tilghman was a West Point graduate from Baltimore, Maryland, and a civil engineer by trade. He had served in the Mexican War and had helped to build the Panama railroad. Railroad construction brought him to Paducah, Kentucky, and in the 1850s, he built a home there that you can still visit today.

When General Tilghman took over Camp Alcorn, the men were apparently living in very sad conditions. He wrote to General Johnston at Bowling Green on October 27, 1861:

I have been detained here [at Clarksville, Tennessee] to-day, preparing matters to aid my organization at Hopkinsville, where I learn a vast deal of suffering exists, owing to the exposed condition of men. I have made arrangements to put 200 women to work on clothing, and hope for a contribution of blankets and clothing from the society at this place. I regret deeply to hear of the condition of things at Hopkinsville, but hope to overcome them. I am sorry also to hear of the inefficient condition of things at Fort Donelson [along the Cumberland River, west of Clarksville, Tennessee). I fear our interests there are well-nigh beyond our control.

Source: Letter from Tilghman to Johnston, October 27, 1861 (p. 479)

Reports from Hopkinsville by General Tilghman

By the 29th of October, General Tilghman had arrived in Hopkinsville. He reported the following to Bowling Green:

I had hoped that the picture, sketched to me of matters here might not have been realized, but I am compelled to think it not too highly colored. Under all the circumstances, 1 doubt not General Alcorn has made the best of things, his camp being merely one large hospital, with scarce men enough on duty to care for the sick and maintain a feeble guard around them, with insufficient pickets at prominent points. Over one-half the entire command are on the sick list, with very grave types of different diseases. Those remaining and reported for duty leave not enough really well men to do more than first stated. The Kentucky Battalion of Infantry, numbering 547, have only 45 cases reported sick. The measles have made their appearance, and the battalion will average 20 new cases per day, judging from to-day's report. The morning brigade report, herewith inclosed, shows only 716 for duty out of a total of 2237.

Source: Letter from Tilghman to Col. W. W. Mackall, October 29, 1861 pp. 485-486

On November 2, General Tilghman wrote again to Bowling Green:

You will have some idea of [the situation in Hopkinsville] when I tell you that in endeavoring to get up a little command last evening to move on Princeton, 1 found that the First Mississippi had 151 for duty, the Third 128. Out of these, guards and pickets had to be taken, giving me only 100 men from each regiment, half of whom were really unfit for the night march (raining in torrents). I managed, however, to get together 400 men and two pieces of artillery, the poorest clad, shod, and armed body I ever saw, but full of enthusiasm. I soon found that half the infantry were so unfit, that the surgeon stated that humanity demanded they should not go. I was relieved by a courier from my embarrassment and delayed until this morning, when a second courier relieved me entirely, by stating that the enemy had turned off from Princeton and [were] making northward. This morning I learn again that they have retired again (as their gunboats have done) towards the mouth of the river. You may therefore consider me relieved of the pressure for a few days.

Source: Letter from Tilghman to Buckner, November 2, 1861 (p. 500)

On November 7, 1861, reinforcements arrived -- volunteers from Texas led by John Gregg. They were partially armed and not yet organized into a regiment. Gregg wrote the following to command in Bowling Green:

Except a number of sick men on the road our nine companies are all here. The number is 749. Five of our number died on the way. From exposure to cold and wet on our journey we have more coughs and colds than I ever saw among the same number of men. Under General Tilghman's direction we will organize and elect our officers to-day or to-morrow. We have the consent of the Secretary of War to that purpose.

Source: Letter from Gregg to Mackall, November 7, 1861 (p. 524-525)

Health at Camp Alcorn improved under General Tilghman's command

By November 11, 1861, General Tilghman was a bit encouraged about the health of the camp. He wrote the following along with a long report of scouting and skirmishes north of Hopkinsville:

I am glad to be able to report "improvement" in my whole command, and the gradual assuming of form and energy in every department. A thorough change in my entire hospital arrangement, by the use of appropriate buildings and the procurement of proper supplies, aided by thorough police, has produced the results usually attainable through such means. The cheerful and able assistance rendered me by those of my own staff, as well as many of the regimental officers, is deserving of high commendation. The command, however, is yet very insufficient for the objects I know you would desire to have attained, and as it seems my only hope is in a patient waiting for re-enforcements, I can only hope I may now be allowed a little respite from the constant danger, real, that has surrounded me for the last ten days.

Source: Letter from Tilghman to Mackall, November 11, 1861 (p. 535-537)

At the end of this letter, he asked that funds for clothing be allocated immediately for the troops under his command.

The First Presbyterian Church of Hopkinsville was one of the sites used as a hospital during the winter of 1861-62, according to a historic marker at the church (corner of 9th and Liberty.)

General Tilghman's letter of November 13 to Bowling Green contained a mixture of good and bad news. A batallion of Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry had arrived from Fort Donelson. The forested area around the river was not good for cavalry maneuvers and furthermore, there wasn't enough food for the horses. General Tilghman had already sent out a joint cavalry and infantry group to prevent Union theft of a large herd of pigs that had been purchased by the Confederate agent in Clarksville. Tilghman also wrote, "My command still improves; are getting into their new hospitals." Source: Letter from Tilghman to Mackall, November 13, 1861 p. 549)

General Tilghman transferred to Forts Henry and Donelson

On November 14, orders were issued by General Buckner in Bowling Green, transferring Brigadier General Tilghman to the Cumberland River. He was given command of Forts Donelson and Henry, where a dangerous lack of discipline and organization existed, even as the Union was getting new and better gunboats. A Brigadier General Charles Clark was put in command of the two Mississippi batallions at Hopkinsville.

This is the end of the Camp Alcorn paper trail I've been following. I can add that General Tilghman did his best in December, 1861, and January, 1862, to get the troops and fortifications at Fort Henry and Donelson ready for battle. The Union attack came in February, 1862 -- 15,000 Union troops and seven Union gunboats -- and both forts fell into Union control, opening the way to Clarksville, Nashville, and beyond. It was the first big Union victory of the war.

General Tilghman surrendered with his men and was imprisoned for about six months. After he was released in a prisoner exchange, he rejoined the Confederate forces in Mississippi. He died in battle at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1864, and it is reported that his men wept when he fell.

The end of Camp Alcorn

As for Camp Alcorn, some of the sick were sent to a Confederate hospital in Clarksville, Tennessee, in November due to the likeliness of a Union attack upon the camp. 53 of Camp Alcorn's volunteer Texans died in Clarksville, and I am not sure how many others.

A historic marker at Riverside Cemetery states that Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest lived in a log house in Hopkinsville with his wife and daughter during the winter of 1861-62 and withdrew from Hopkinsville to Tennessee when the CSA left Bowling Green. Kentucky's historic markers document a busy winter of raids and reconnaissance by Forrest in the area around Hopkinsville, though many of his men fell sick while camped here.

Camp Alcorn was apparently broken up when all its able-bodied troops were sent to the defense of Fort Donelson in February of 1862. As far as I know, the only remaining evidence of its existence at Hopkinsville is the Camp Alcorn cemetery.

A local Sons of Confederate Veterans group (Jefferson Davis Birthplace Camp # 1675) has worked hard to honor these fallen Confederate soldiers by compiling records, providing individual tombstones for each known soldier, and faithfully placing flags for them.



Related articles on this blog
Civil War Graves at Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, KY
A Walk In Riverside Cemetery
More About Riverside Cemetery

Letters sent from Camp Alcorn
From a Confederate soldier to a lady he admired
Description of the sickness at Camp Alcorn and the weather, Winter of 1861-62  (Scroll down to "Letter from the 'Bass Grays'.”)

A description of the housing at Camp Alcorn

Additional related material:
That Dark and Bloody Ground: The Kentucky Campaign of 1861
One Camp Alcorn soldier's history
Tribute to General Lloyd Tilghman
Norwegian reenactment group for the 7th Texas Infantry, includes a list of all soldiers who died at Camp Alcorn
Lloyd Tilghman at Wikipedia
Tilghman monument at Vicksburg
Another photo of Tilghman monument
Captain J. M. Sparkman's Tennessee Light Artillery Company
My Civil War, Before, During, and After -- Memoirs of a Union soldier who fought in this part of Kentucky with the 5th Iowa Cavalry

Civil War Graves at Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville, KY

Camp Alcorn Cemetery and Unknown Confederate Soldiers Monument, Hopkinsville, KY..

I sometimes walk in Riverview Cemetery in Hopkinsville. It's very quiet there and I always hear birds singing. The perky little robin at right was squabbling with another robin near the cemetery's south gate. They didn't break it up until I came very close. Maybe they were male robins, arguing about a female?

I find cemeteries very interesting when they contain graves from long ago. I read the stones and ponder the lives of people who lived before my time. The details on some tombstones hint at tragic stories, but others record long and apparently prosperous and happy lives. All this reading and pondering makes for a leisurely stroll instead of a brisk walk-for-exercise!

Riverside Cemetery is interesting because it contains many graves of Civil War soldiers. At the main gate, several historic markers document the burial of Civil War soldiers within, including a Union General. Another marker documents the fact that Colonel Nathan Bedford Forest spent the winter of 1861-1862 in Hopkinsville.



About 300 Confederate soldiers are buried in the Camp Alcorn Cemetery within Riverside Cemetery, and apparently the vast majority of these men -- perhaps all -- died of disease in camp near Hopkinsville. How sad to leave home and family and die in such circumstances.

The identities of 101 of the Confederate soldiers are unknown, but their burial is commemorated with a historic marker at the main gate and their grave is marked with a large monument erected by John C. Latham, a contemporary from Christian County who survived the War and became a wealthy businessman.

John C. Latham is the same man who donated Peace and Latham Parks to the city of Hopkinsville. Mr. Latham's tombstone is located in the same general area as the Unknown Confederate Soldiers' monument, and it is about the same size as the monument with a long description of his impeccable character inscribed upon it.



Here are the inscriptions on the four sides of the monument for the Unknown Confederate Soldiers (pictured above right):

East side (seen above with emblem)
AROUND
THIS COLUMN
IS BURIED
ALL OF HEROISM
THAT COULD DIE.


(North side)
WHILE MARTYRS
FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE
ARE RESPECTED,
THE VALOR AND DEVOTION
OF THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER
WILL BE ADMIRED
BY THE GOOD
AND THE BRAVE.


(West side)
BENEATH THIS SOIL
IS MINGLED
THE SACRED DUST OF
ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
UNKNOWN SOLDIERS
WHO WERE ATTACHED
TO THE FOLLOWING COMMANDS:
FIRST MISSISSIPPI REGIMENT
THIRD MISSISSIPPI REGIMENT
SEVENTH TEXAS REGIMENT
EIGHTH KENTUCKY REGIMENT
FOREST'S CAVALRY
WOODWARD'S KENTUCKY CAVALRY
GREEN'S KENTUCKY ARTILLERY
-----
WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
1861-1865


(South side)
THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED
AT THE PLACE OF HIS BIRTH
BY A SURVIVING COMRADE
TO COMMEMORATE THE VIRTUES
OF THE CONFEDERATE DEAD
-----
A.D. 1887

The Camp Alcorn Confederate Cemetery is located in a separate area of Riverside Cemetery near the river. Each gravestone tells the name of the soldier, his rank, and his military unit. A large sandstone slab with a engraved plate gives a bit of the story. I originally thought that these gravestones marked actual graves of soldiers, but I now believe that it is a memorial to all the (known) deceased Confederate soldiers whose bodies remained in Hopkinsville. Careful reading of the engraved plate seems to confirm this. (This paragraph updated 1-02-11.)





Riverside Cemetery also contains graves of Civil War veterans who lived out their natural lives. They are buried with their families, and their gravestones sometimes carry a notation of their rank and the regiment with which they served.

I have posted some photos of Riverside Cemetery before. I didn't look back at the previous posts, but probably some of the photos in this post are another look at the same scenes. I hope that these posts about Riverside Cemetery will be of interest to the visitors who come here regularly seeking information about it.



Google search for information about Camp Alcorn


Related articles on this blog:
A Walk In Riverside Cemetery
More About Riverside Cemetery
Camp Alcorn at Hopkinsville, KY

Peaceful Valley

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... The Rural Life...

Isaac (with the help of his Scout troop) has cleaned and repaired an old overgrown cemetery for his Eagle Scout service project. This photo is taken from inside the cemetery, looking out across the valley.

I think there are worse places to be buried. It's quiet and very peaceful. Time progresses by seasons, not by minutes and hours. Now the landscape is brown, but soon it will be green. Then birds will nest in the trees and calves will frolic in the pasture for a time before the cold winds blow again.

Isaac has disrupted nature with his chopping and mowing and hauling off, but when spring comes, she will begin again to reclaim this place.






Related posts:
Eagle Project Begun
Eagle Project is Taking Shape

One year ago today on Prairie Bluestem, I related a few stories about Kentucky vultures.

Scenes from Dover TN and Fort Donelson

Life in The Upper South... History and Old Stuff...

This morning while Isaac was taking the ACT at Dover, TN, I wandered around the Fort Donelson National Battleground and National Cemetery for a couple of hours. The Union victory here was a turning point in the War Between the States. The grounds were beautiful in the cold bright light, and the extreme quiet of the place was almost eerie.













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Fort Donelson
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