People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — OUR NATIONAL CEMETERIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OUR NATIONAL CEMETERIES

Fame’s Eternal Camping Grounds, Where Sleep Our Soldier Dead. Eighty-three national cemeteries, wherein 330,700 soldiers are sleeping their last long sleep, have been established within the boundaries of the United States. The laying out of these great gardens of graves and maintaining them in such a way as to deserve this lat ter appellation have cost the nation a sum of money large enough to disprove, at least in a measure, the old time saying that “republics are ungrateful.” But the money that has been expended to properly mark and adorn the resting places of the brave men who died that the nation might live is not and has not been expended grudgingly. It has been paid out freely as the last and only possible tribute to the memory of men as brave as ever lived, and who fought for home and liberty. In thus commemorating the deeds of her common soldiers the United States is quite unrivaled by any other nation, ancient or modern. This noble work could not have been accomplished but for wise and patriotic foresight exercised almost at the beginning of

the war. In September, 1881, the secretary of war issued an order to the effect that accurate and permanent records be kept as to all deceased Union soldiers, and this order was at once followed by the issuing of blank forms through the quartermaster’s department to hospital surgeons and ail others who could use them. On the battlefields when the Federal troops were victorious great care was taken to bury the dead in such a way that each grave could be marked, and headboards provided by the general quartermaster were set up. Only on fields where the Confederates won were the dead buried without marking the graves. Soldiers who survived the southern prisons in many instances marked the graves of their comrades who died, and records were kept everywhere it was possible to do so, so that the mortuary records of the great civil contest exceed anything else of the same nature in the world. It was in the second year of the war that congress authorized the president to purchase grounds and have them prepared for soldiers’ cemeteries. The next year such graveyards were dedicated at Chattanooga, Stone River and Gettysburg. It was at the dedication of the last named of these three that President Lincoln delivered that address which, spoken modestly as it was, did not then attract the attention of its hearers as anything greatly out of the ordinary, but which, when it was telegraphed over the land and read in the newspapers, speedily took high rank' among notable spoken passages and has since been accorded a place among classic orations. The national cemetery at Arlington was laid out in 1864, that at Antietam in 1865. In pursuance of the general plan of 1865, 17 cemeteries were established in Virginia, 7 in Tennessee, 6 in Kentucky, 4 in North Carolina, 4 in Louisiana, 3 in Mississippi, 3 in Maryland, 2 in South Carolina, 2 in Georgia and 2 in tbe District of Columbia. In tbe north and west 4 were established in Illinois, 3 in Missouri, 2 in Indiana, 1 in lowa. 2 in Pennsylvania, 2 in New York and 2in New Jersey. In many places besides these the government has purchased small plots of ground where a few soldiers lie, and several cemeteries contain govt rnment plots wherein the bodies of Confederates who died in Federal prisons are buried. Less than one-fi th of the entire number whose graves tire now market! and tenderly cared for lie where they were lirat inferred. Five of the national cemeteries contain the bodies of United Sta soldiert v. hc fell in other wars than tbe ; i de .-•• t ».*. Union. One of the most r.ot aide is nea • the City of Mexico. Another i ; in Mon: m i. In tbe latter lie the bodies of 918 i 'guia.s, including the. 300 brave men who were massacred with Custer by the redskins. It is a thing that every American may be proud of that all these cemeteries are kept in superb condition. The cemetery at Ar-, lingten heights, near Washington, is the most beautiful and contains the largest number of graves of identified dead. The total number of interments there is 16.535, of which but 4,349 are of unidentified soldiers. The first soldier buried there was a Confederate, on May 13, 1864. The grave of Sheridan is a striking feature of the Arlington cemetery, where have also beep gathered the bodies of most, of those who fell at Bull Run, Chantilly and other battlefields in the vicinity. A massive monument of sarcophagus form, marking the bodies of 2,111 unknown scidiers, attracts much attention, as does also the T em-

pie of Fame, a circular structure composed ofeight columns surmounted by a dome. The columns are marked by the names of Washington, Lincoln, Grant. Farragut, tiuniphreys, Reynolds, Garfield, Thomas and Meade. ■ The cemetery at Gettysburg, whit its ru merous monuments r.od i> s' 3 .‘..r’ i.-b't.tv those ; t Shiloh, with 3.7,7; Vic<sbnir wit h i >.(t: <,j;; MraiiM ami I 2 72 : Hini dent: tie-;): Fredericksburg. w;t■: 15 274. <• which 12,1 -i, are lit;l;r,ovn; Nash 7’lt itl 16.516; Fa isbury, N C., with V. t s which o»i!y 162 are known; ?t!ei tjois, with 13,984; Andersonville, with 13,702, a!i identified but 023;Chatitmcoga, with 13,Cv8—ail the national cemeteries are, in fact, interesting. especially at tills time, and all receive aliketh<*l'ttemiof. 1 ■ government. The number of Uonfciicrate soldiers’ graves • .- ■ ■ • ■ ' r than tin; are as cftriitodly teuu':i c.t'd v

ENTRANCE TO ARLINGTON HEIGHTS CEMETERY".

ENTRANCE TO SHILOH CEMETERY.