Click
here for more information about Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC.
Click
here for a 3/6/05 newspaper article on the March 5, 2005 funeral.
Click
here for a 3/3/05 newspaper article on the planned March 5, 2005 funeral.
Click
here for a 2/23/05 newspaper article on the planned March 5, 2005 funeral.
Click here for the 2/24/05 Press Release from CHT.
Click here for the list of known men buried in Seaman's Burial Ground, Charleston
| http://archives.postandcourier.com/archive/arch05/0305/arc03062193305.shtml Mass funeral recognizes 21 fallen Confederates Soldiers, sailors laid to rest at Magnolia Cemetery Published on 03/06/05 BY DENESHIA GRAHAM Of The Post and Courier Staff The slow and solemn beating of a drum is heard amid a rustling of oak leaves. A black hearse rolls into view. Spectators scurry around tombstones with cameras in hand and black strips of cloth tied around their upper left arms. They aim at those dressed in the blues, beiges and grays of the 19th-century Confederate soldiers. Two by two, these soldiers carry Confederate flag-draped boxes to black-covered stands before the audience. Dead, brown leaves crunch underfoot. The white-gloved soldiers file into rows of white folding chairs, preferred seating for those who would help bury the dead. Saturday's mass funeral at Magnolia Cemetery in North Charleston laid to rest 21 Confederate soldiers and sailors who were recovered from the soil under The Citadel's football stadium. These are the last of 62 Confederate remains discovered between 1993 and 2004. Among them are five members from the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley's first journey. Randy Burbage, president of The Confederate Heritage Trust, approaches the microphone and asks that all cell phones be turned off. Choked with emotion, he says it is "a day to honor 21 souls who gave their lives for the Confederacy." Dr. Jonathan Leader, director of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, approaches next. Leader oversaw the excavation effort with numerous volunteers who climbed around open graves at the football stadium and gently cleared earth from around the skeletons. "I see people who've made a journey," Leader says of the volunteers. "When you do something on behalf of the dead ... you're doing it because it's the right thing to do."Chip Brown, 18, of Summerville is among the volunteers. The high school senior with dreams of an archaeology career spent three days last summer helping excavate bodies. "This is the greatest experience of my life," says Brown, who donned a gray Confederate uniform and served as a pallbearer. The Rev. Dr. Vance E. Polley of Sunrise Presbyterian Church on Sullivan's Island offers Bible verses for comfort. Mourners include a row of black-veiled women sitting at the front. They represent the widows, whose black hoop gowns resemble inverted teacups. Their black-laced hands gingerly grip the green stems of white roses. In the audience, an onlooker smokes a cigarette behind the last row of seats. A mother rocks a screaming child. A father helps his young son tighten the black strip on his arm. Polley preaches briefly about the importance of history, which he says "defines the present and shapes the future." He talks about a nation divided over the Civil War and about the stronger, more unified nation that emerges thereafter. At ceremony's end, soldiers untie the Confederate flags from atop the unpolished wooden squares carrying the remains. They fold the flags and present them to the widows. Another soldier comes later, tips his hat to each widow and receives the flags again. The ceremony soon moves to the burial site across the cemetery, behind several mounds of brown dirt. Widows approach and stoop by the graves, lingering for a moment after they toss their flowers in. Lynda Perrin, one of the widows, says later that these fallen soldiers deserve this fitting burial for fighting for what they believed in. "They gave their lives," she says. |
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| http://archives.postandcourier.com/archive/arch05/0305/arc03032187516.shtml Confederate mass burial may be last Charleston funeral Saturday for 21 soldiers and sailors Published on 03/03/05 BY SCHUYLER KROPF Of The Post and Courier Staff A funeral Saturday for 21 Confederates recovered from beneath The Citadel's football stadium could be the last mass-Civil War burial South Carolina will see for some time. The state's battle sites and wartime cemeteries, especially those along the coast, pretty much have been overrun by development, said burial organizer Randy Burbage, chairman of the Confederate Heritage Trust. "The chances of finding this many again are pretty slim," Burbage said Wednesday. "As battleground areas are developed, they'll probably find one or two here or there because they buried soldiers everywhere. But this probably will be the last time this many are buried at once." At 1 p.m. Saturday, the remains of the 21 sailors and soldiers will be interred at Magnolia Cemetery. They are the last of 62 Confederates — including five members of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley's first crew — recovered from beneath Johnson Hagood Stadium between 1993 and 2004. The men originally were left in what was the wartime Seaman's Burial Ground on the Ashley River. In 1948, Johnson Hagood was built over the cemetery by the city of Charleston. The bodies never were moved. For the funeral, the remains will be transported in hearses to the burial site, then carried by re-enactors to the Soldier's Ground for interment. At least 300 re-enactors are expected, Burbage said. The remains were recovered in June after Confederate Heritage Trust members went back to the stadium. The west-side bleachers had been torn down, allowing excavators into previously unreachable areas blocked by floors, walls or other supports. Burbage said the bones were in poor condition because of the wet ground beneath the stadium and because of construction that occurred decades ago. Many of the remains "fell apart when they came out of the ground," Burbage said. "We believe the men who sacrificed their lives for the Confederacy deserve better than to be buried beneath the grandstands of a football stadium," he added. |
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Press
release February 24, 2005, from CHT:
At 1pm on Saturday, March 5, 2005 the Confederate Heritage Trust,
Charleston, S.C. will reenter the bodies of twenty-one Confederate Sailors
and Soldiers whose remains were recovered from beneath Johnson Hagood
Stadium in June of 2004. None of the twenty-one bodies were identifiable.
They are the last of sixty-one Confederate bodies recovered between 1993
and 2004 from beneath the Citadel’s football stadium. The Seaman’s
Burial Ground Cemetery on the Ashley River was built over in 1948 when the
new stadium was erected by the City of Charleston, S.C. The bodies are to
be reentered in Magnolia Cemetery’s Confederate section in a solemn,
honorable ceremony.
The Confederate Heritage Trust is a non-profit organization of
heritage groups established to preserve Confederate history. It is
composed of Secession Camp #4 Sons of Confederate Veterans, H.L. Hunley
Camp #143 Sons of Confederate Veterans, Moultrie Camp #27 Sons of
Confederate Veterans, South Carolina Ladies Auxiliary, Mary Yates Snowden
Chapter Order of the Confederate Rose, 10th S.C. Volunteer
Infantry, 27th S.C. Volunteer Infantry, and the Santee Light
Artillery.
Randy Burbage, Chairman of the CHT said, “Our volunteers worked
tirelessly under terribly hot, wet conditions for two weeks in June to
recover these men’s bodies. We believe men who sacrificed their lives
for the Confederacy deserve better than to be buried beneath the
grandstands of a football stadium. We hope we can return their dignity and
bury them with honor and respect in a much more suitable place.” The ceremony will held at 1pm in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC on Saturday, March 5, 2005. Magnolia Cemetery is just off Meeting Street Road on Cunnington Street. Randall
B. Burbage, |
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| List
of known men buried in Seaman’s Burial Ground, Charleston |
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http://www.charleston.net/stories/Default.aspx?newsID=12405§ion=localnews (Due to temporary changes in the Post & Courier while they are revamping their website, I have included the text of their article here.) Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - Last Updated: 6:23 AM Confederate remains to be reburied in Magnolia Cemetery in March
BY SCHUYLER KROPF The remains of 21 Confederate dead will be buried in Magnolia Cemetery next month, ending a 12-year effort to recover lost rebels from beneath The Citadel's football stadium. The soldiers and sailors were part of a much larger group of Confederates buried near the Ashley River during the Civil War. The site was presumed lost when Johnson Hagood Stadium was built over it in 1948. Local re-enactor Randy Burbage said none of the men found during his group's final excavation last June have been identified, but it appears most died during the defense of Charleston. Some had bullets in their bodies, while others "appeared to be in pajamas or some kind of hospital gown," Burbage said. Charleston was a focal point of the Civil War on the Southeastern coast as Union forces on land and at sea put near-constant pressure on the city where secession began. The cemetery was on low ground, making many of the gravesites constantly wet, Burbage said. "The bodies were in such poor condition, we couldn't tell a lot about them," he said. The men are thought to be Confederate sailors or marines because the graveyard was designated a mariner's cemetery, he said. Since 1993, when local re-enactors began searching stadium grounds for rebel dead, the remains of more than 60 Confederates have been recovered, including five members of the submarine H.L. Hunley's first crew who drowned during an 1863 test mission. Volunteers were able to go back into the site last summer for one last search after the west side of the stadium was torn down. The funeral is set for March 5 but won't be as grand as last April's procession for the eight crewmen recovered from the Hunley, which sank off Charleston in 1864. Rather than a march through the city, Burbage said this funeral will begin at the Magnolia Cemetery gate where the men will be escorted to the Soldier's Ground inside the cemetery. Start time is 1 p.m. The remains of about 350 civilians also were recovered from below the stadium. Those remains are in storage while Citadel officials decide how to re-inter them now that Johnson Hagood will be rebuilt at its current location, school spokeswoman Charlene Gunnells said Tuesday. One idea is to select a small site in the area of the present stadium for reburial and to erect a monument, she said. |
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