memorial poem for union soldiers in the Civil War

[bobbieinok]

The final journal of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1957 contained this...

In Memoriam
"Their spirits live in the hearts of men,
Good deeds can never die.
the banner fair that they sought to save,
Still floats 'neath the evening sky,
And the bright North Star o'er their graves
shall keep A vigil eternal and sure,
A symbol forever of hope that shines,
For lives that were brave and pure. "
" Taps are sounded, lights are out,
The soldiers sleep."

One of my great-grandfathers fought in the 11th Iowa Infantry (Union); a probable great-grandfather fought in the 25th Infantry of North Carolina (Confederate). I recently discovered that the book and its movie Cold Mountain is about a soldier from this infantry. A probable great-great-grandfather may have been in the Thomas Legion of North Carolina or the 29th Regiment of NC; if in the latter, he was fighting on the Confederate side at the battle of Atlanta while my great-grandfather from IA was fighting there on the Union side.

My Iowa great-grandfather went with his family from the Shenandoah Valley to Iowa when he was 7 years old. In the Civil War, family relatives in the Shenandoah Valley fought for the Confederates; some died later of wounds suffered at Gettysburg. The Battle of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley was fought near a farm, one of whose ancestors was also the ancestor of my IA soldier's mother.

All of us whose families (at least part of them)have been in the US since the 1850s probably have ancestors on both sides of the conflict. We had long known of the IA soldier (in my father's family), but we only recently discovered the probable NC soldiers (in my mother's family).

[Joe for Clark]

1. That is a really nice poem.

[bobbieinok]

3. when my great-grandfather died in 1919, 54 years after the end of

the Civil War, the local newspaper started the report of his death/funeral with something like: 'Most are gone now; the few who are left are old, white-haired, walking with a cane....'

[Joe for Clark]

6. This is such a great post Bobbie, it really is.

I am proud to associate with someone that took the care to look back on their history like you did.

Kind of sad, in a way - in a few more years the same is going to be said about our parents that fought WWII.

The good thing is that there may be people like you to remember.

Joe

[Fridays Child]

2. It's often said that the Civil War "pitted brother against brother..."

...especially in the border states but probably throughout the country, too.

[Joe for Clark]

5. It wasn't just in the border states.

Pemberton was the confederate commander that surrendered Vicksburg to Grant in 1863 - he was from Pennsylvania. The day he surrendered Vicksburg (July 4th) is the day Gettysburg ended in Pennsylvania (although the fighting ended on July 3rd in Gettysburg).

[Rowdyboy]

4. One branch of my family came from New England to Mississippi....

They left most of their family back in Massachusetts so certainly I had relatives active on both sides of the conflict. I also had one ancestor (a dirt farmer) who deserted from the confederacy. He was from a county (Jones)who opposed Mississippi's entry into the war-they were farmers but not slaveholders and felt no desire to die in its support. He and some fellow deserters hid out in the swamps and raided both union and confederate supply lines in order to feed their families. There's a community on the edge of the swamp where several of the deserters were hung still known as "Cracker's Neck" (guess it was a bad pun).

I'm really thankful that I've been able to tap into genealogical research done on almost every branch of my family going back, in one case, to the 1400's, and frequently to the 1600's.