Lt-Col A. Tack
10-10-2009, 08:16 PM
Civil War soldier to be laid to rest
By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
He may have died trying to preserve the Union. He may have been fighting to preserve slavery.
Either way, the remains of a Civil War soldier found at a construction site in Franklin, Tenn., will be buried with honors as residents of the North and the South look on.
"We don't know if he's a Confederate or Union soldier," Franklin Mayor John Schroer says. "But at the end of the day, we know he's an American soldier who died, and we want to make sure his remains are handled properly."
On Saturday, a horse-drawn caisson will carry through town a handmade coffin containing the bones of a young man who was at one of the most horrible battles in the war. He will be laid to rest at Rest Haven Cemetery, where many who died in the Battle of Franklin are buried.
Civil War re-enactors will drop earth from all 18 states that participated in the battle over the coffin as it is interred.
Schroer says the ceremony will be a "kind of bringing together of both sides."
In the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 30, 1864, Maj. Gen. John Schofield arrived at the Carter cotton farm with 35,500 federal soldiers. He was headed for nearby Nashville, which was in Union hands.
Gen. John Bell Hood, newly named commander of the Confederate Army, was determined to block the Union reinforcements so he could retake Nashville.
He advanced on the farm in the afternoon with 25,000 troops. The cannonade was so thick it was near impossible to tell friend from enemy. Men clubbed, stabbed and choked each other in hand-to-hand combat.
In five hours of fighting, the Union suffered 2,000 casualties, the Confederates 7,000 casualties. The Union troops went on to Nashville.
It was "the last great charge" by the Confederate Army, says J.T. Thompson of the Lotz House, a Civil War museum in Franklin.
The soldier found May 14 was about 20 years old when he died. Also found were a bullet, copper buttons from a Union jacket, and copper tacks in a piece of a leather boot heel.
The federal buttons did not solve the mystery.
"There were plenty of Confederate soldiers that were running around wearing Union buttons for one reason or another," says archaeologist Larry McKee of TRC Environmental.
Robert Grim, commanding general of the military unit of the Sons of Union Veterans, will travel from Sabina, Ohio, to take part in the ceremony.
Grim is going under the possibility that the soldier did not take up arms against the U.S. on behalf of states that were enslaving millions. "It could have been that he was a loyal participant trying to save the Union," he says. If so, "he has to be honored."
Jay Sheridan, a member of the City of Franklin's Battlefield Task Force says, "Both sides were fighting for the cause they believed in. To the Confederacy that was states' rights and independence."
The point of the ceremony is the reconciliation that came after, he says. The combatants "were Americans before and Americans after," he says. "This country has been faced with a lot of adversity and in the course of time, we have always prevailed."
Link (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-10-08-civil-war-burial_N.htm)
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9779/remainsxtoppermedium.jpg
Students watch the changing of the guard next to an unknown soldier's
coffin in Franklin, Tenn.
By Jeanne Reasonover, The (Nashville) Tennessean
By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
He may have died trying to preserve the Union. He may have been fighting to preserve slavery.
Either way, the remains of a Civil War soldier found at a construction site in Franklin, Tenn., will be buried with honors as residents of the North and the South look on.
"We don't know if he's a Confederate or Union soldier," Franklin Mayor John Schroer says. "But at the end of the day, we know he's an American soldier who died, and we want to make sure his remains are handled properly."
On Saturday, a horse-drawn caisson will carry through town a handmade coffin containing the bones of a young man who was at one of the most horrible battles in the war. He will be laid to rest at Rest Haven Cemetery, where many who died in the Battle of Franklin are buried.
Civil War re-enactors will drop earth from all 18 states that participated in the battle over the coffin as it is interred.
Schroer says the ceremony will be a "kind of bringing together of both sides."
In the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 30, 1864, Maj. Gen. John Schofield arrived at the Carter cotton farm with 35,500 federal soldiers. He was headed for nearby Nashville, which was in Union hands.
Gen. John Bell Hood, newly named commander of the Confederate Army, was determined to block the Union reinforcements so he could retake Nashville.
He advanced on the farm in the afternoon with 25,000 troops. The cannonade was so thick it was near impossible to tell friend from enemy. Men clubbed, stabbed and choked each other in hand-to-hand combat.
In five hours of fighting, the Union suffered 2,000 casualties, the Confederates 7,000 casualties. The Union troops went on to Nashville.
It was "the last great charge" by the Confederate Army, says J.T. Thompson of the Lotz House, a Civil War museum in Franklin.
The soldier found May 14 was about 20 years old when he died. Also found were a bullet, copper buttons from a Union jacket, and copper tacks in a piece of a leather boot heel.
The federal buttons did not solve the mystery.
"There were plenty of Confederate soldiers that were running around wearing Union buttons for one reason or another," says archaeologist Larry McKee of TRC Environmental.
Robert Grim, commanding general of the military unit of the Sons of Union Veterans, will travel from Sabina, Ohio, to take part in the ceremony.
Grim is going under the possibility that the soldier did not take up arms against the U.S. on behalf of states that were enslaving millions. "It could have been that he was a loyal participant trying to save the Union," he says. If so, "he has to be honored."
Jay Sheridan, a member of the City of Franklin's Battlefield Task Force says, "Both sides were fighting for the cause they believed in. To the Confederacy that was states' rights and independence."
The point of the ceremony is the reconciliation that came after, he says. The combatants "were Americans before and Americans after," he says. "This country has been faced with a lot of adversity and in the course of time, we have always prevailed."
Link (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-10-08-civil-war-burial_N.htm)
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9779/remainsxtoppermedium.jpg
Students watch the changing of the guard next to an unknown soldier's
coffin in Franklin, Tenn.
By Jeanne Reasonover, The (Nashville) Tennessean