I spent some time looking at various post around the web about Monday’s Confederate Memorial Day. The Opelika Observer did a great review of the picture of the Opelika Memorial Dedication December 7th, 1910. I picked a few comments from the web that I thought were interesting and have included links to the full articles. I hope you find this interesting reading.
The South still remembers the men and women of the Confederate States of America who came from all races and religions that include: Cuban born Confederate Colonel Ambrosio Jose Gonzales, Irish-born General Patrick R. Cleburne, Black Confederate drummer Bill Yopp, Mexican born Colonel Santos Benavides, Cherokee Born General Stand Watie and Jewish born Confederate Nurse Phoebe Pember who was the first female administrator of Chimboraza Hospital in Richmond, Virginia where she served until the end of the war. Source: http://www.huntingtonnews.net/29288
Alan Caruba writes on his blog, the Confederacy lasted from 1861 to 1885 and its history constituted the first modern war in which the awful technologies of war left the South with an estimated 94,000 battle deaths, and 164,000 dead from disease. Fully 258,000 men fought under its flag. The North lost a total of 360,222 to death and disease. Along with the Reconstruction, the South paid a fearsome price for its integrity and beliefs.
It is a little known fact that there is a monument to the Confederate dead at Arlington National Cemetery. Its inscription says, “Not for fame or reward, Not for place or for rank, Not lured by ambition, Or goaded by necessity, But in Simple Obedience to Duty as they understood it, These men suffered all, Sacrificed all, Dared all—and died.” Source: http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/05/confederate-memorial-day.html
It is a matter of history that Mrs. Chas. J. Williams, of Columbus, Ga., instituted the beautiful custom of decorating soldiers’ graves with flowers, a custom which has been adopted throughout the United States. Mrs. Williams was the daughter of Maj. John Howard, of Milledgeville, Ga., and was a superior woman. She married Maj. C. J. Williams on his return from the Mexican War. As colonel of the First Georgia Regulars, of the Army in Virginia, he contracted disease, from which he died in 1862, and was buried in Columbus, Ga.
Mrs. Williams and her little girl visited his grave every day, and often comforted themselves by wreathing it with flowers. While the mother sat abstractly thinking of the loved and lost one, the little one would pluck the weeds from the unmarked soldiers’ graves near her father’s and cover them with flowers, calling them her soldiers’ graves. Source: http://gasebrigade.tripod.com/confederate%20memorial%20day.htm (Photo Source & Credit: http://beauforttribune.com/archives/5142
