Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1911 — OUR SOLDIER DEAD IN 84 CEMETERIES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OUR SOLDIER DEAD IN 84 CEMETERIES.

More Than 350,000 Heroes of Our Wars Are Buried in Graveyards Owned by the Government. IN the palmy days of democratic Athens the bones of every citizen who perished in the service of his country were brought borne to be buried in the Ceramicus. A day was appolr*»d in the winter, when military operations were suspended, for the funeral. Oue of the noblest orations of antiquity—that attributed by Thucydides to Pericles—was delivered on such an occasion. Mddern nations build stately mausoleums for their great generals, but are usually content to allot only the hasty trench or ditch to the common soldier. The bones of British soldiers are scattered the world around. To this rule of indifference as to the final resting place of obscure heroes the United States forms a shining and honorable exception. There are today eighty-four national cemeteries, which contained on June 30, 1909, the graves of 359,285 American soldiers and sailors. *" The national cemeteries are mainly a result of the civil war. In September. 1861, the secretary of w r ar by gen-

eral order directed accurate and permanent records to be k.ept of deceased soldiers and their places of burial. The work was assigned to the quartermaster general’s department. That department already had charge of the burial of officers and soldiers, but its care had ordinarily ended with the drifting smoke of the guns that were discharged over their graves. By act of July 17; 1862. congress empowered the president to purchase cemetery grounds to be used for the burial of “soldiers who shall die in the service of their country.” Such was the intensity of the great war that for some time no action was taken nnder the law. Following the battle of Gettysburg Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania inaugurated a movement whereby several states purchased seventeen acres of ground embracing the cfeqter of the Union line and caused to be disinterred and reburied there the bodies of the soldiers who bad been buried outside this area. The cemetery was dedicated by Lincoln. Nov. 19, 1863, In that perfect tribute to the “honored dead” who there “gave the last full measure of devotion.” The cemetery was subsequently taken over by the nation. * In the summer of 1865 a force of men under Captain James Moore was sent to Andersonville to inclose the grounds and provide headboards for each grave. They were able to identify 12,461 of the graves, leaving only 451 “unknown.” The eighty-four national cemeteries are divided according to importance into twenty-six first class, twenty second class, sixteen third class and twenty-two fourth class cemeteries. Those in the first class include Arlington, Andersonville, Antietam, Chalmette, Chattanooga, Nashville, Corinth, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Jefferson Barracks, Shiloh and Vicksburg. - In the number of interments that at Arlington stands first, with 21,106. That at Vicksburg is a rather close second, with 16,892. The Nashville cemetery is third, with 16,691. Arlington, as is generally known, formerly belonged to the wife of General Robert E. Lee. Mrs. Lee was a daughter of George Washington Parke Custis. who was a grandson of Martha Washington. The stately mansion, whose classic columns have been seen by' every visitor to Washington city, was inherited by her. and at the out-

break of the civil war it was the Lee home. Lee, then a colonel in the United States army, wrote his resignation there April 20, 1861. Two days later he quitted his beautiful home forever to accept command of the military forces of his state. Overlooking as It does the Potomac and the capital, a more beautiful spot could scarcely be Imagined. Magnificent old oaks shade its glades and knolls, and art has perfected what nature left undone. The cemetery contains the tombs of Logan. Sheridan, Lawton and other noted generals. One of the most interesting national cemeteries Is that on Coster's battle field in Montana. The story of how the dashlpg yellow haired young major general and every man of fire-com-panies of the-Seventh ca valry losttheli lives in battie with the Sioux. June 25 1876, is known to every one. The smallest national cemetery is that at Ball's Bluff. Va. It is on the site ot the battlefield of that name, fought in 1861. It is only fifty feet square and is situated on a large bluff overlooking the upper Potomac. It contains the graves of one known and twenty-four unknown soldiers.

GENERAL SHERIDAN’S MONUMENT IN ARLINGTON.