Posted on 01/17/2007 11:47:42 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
Historians say burial ground found in city
Members of the University of Tennessee's Archaeological Research Laboratory are using ground-penetrating radar to determine if Confederate soldiers from the Civil War-era Camp Van Dorn rest on property that now belongs to the city of Knoxville.
Amateur historians believe they have found the long-sought burial site near the city's Malcolm Martin Park at Western Avenue. They are using a ground-mapping process with a geophysics survey system that records abnormalities below ground.
Nicholas Herrmann, a research assistant professor in the anthropology program at UT and with the lab, is leading the early survey. He said his team is looking for "shafts or pits" that might have been used in burying Confederate soldiers from Camp Van Dorn, a training camp set up in Knoxville in 1862.
Camp Van Dorn was named by Gen. E. Kirby Smith in March 1862 to honor his friend and West Point classmate Confederate Gen. Earl Van Dorn. At the time, Knoxville was in the hands of the Confederacy, and Smith was in charge of what was called the Department of East Tennessee.
Many of the soldiers arriving in Knoxville were from Camp McDonald at Big Shanty near Atlanta. For the most part, they were raw recruits, some coming in without weapons. In Knoxville, presumably, they were to be put through boot camp, issued weapons and sent to Cumberland Gap.
Charlie Monday, a Maryville amateur historian, has been investigating the camp and the story, which has intrigued local historians for decades. From letters and diaries, he believes many of the soldiers died of diseases such as measles and amoebic dysentery and were buried in what is now Mechanicsville.
He said private funding is paying for the GPS mapping.
Monday became interested in the story after Gary Goodson, a Shawnee, Colo., historian, arrived in Knoxville last year to announce that he had found Camp Van Dorn. Goodson had been searching for the camp for about two decades.
Goodson said more than 150 soldiers from Georgia Confederate units died at the camp. He is a descendant of one of the Georgia soldiers who survived the camp diseases.
Monday also found local diaries that talked of the camp, and with one such diary he believes he has located the burial ground for the soldiers.
That is the place Herrmann and his helpers were looking recently, using the radar.
"Charlie believes there might be graves from Camp Van Dorn," said Herrmann. "We are using ground-penetrating radar to see if the data will show sub-surface features."
Those "anomalies," he said, could be in the form of disturbed dirt or burial shafts.
Herrmann said his team was collecting data "in 3-D slices and we will turn that into a 2-D image."
He said results from preliminary mapping could perhaps be done by the end of the week. If the data show the anomalies, then the team would return and conduct test probes.
Future probes will depend, he said, on funding and what is found.
A historical marker for Camp Van Dorn is to be placed at the park. The marker has been ordered, according to the Tennessee Historical Commission. Goodson is the paying sponsor for the marker, the commission said.
Senior writer Fred Brown may be reached at 865-342-6427.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't the last soldier that fought in a Civil War battle, die in the 1950's?
Albert Woolson of Minnesota was a Union drummer boy who died in 1956, and the Civil War's last authenticated survivor. On the Confederate side the answer is somewhat more difficult to confirm.
An article by historian William Marvel, published in Blue and Gray magazine in February 1991, and titled "The Great Impostors," names Pleasant Crump of the 10th Alabama, who died in 1951, the last Confederate vet. Prior claimants to the distinction included Walter Washington Williams (who died December 19, 1959) of Texas and John Salling (who died March 19, 1959) of Virginia. A thorough check of official census records by Marvel suggests that both Williams and Salling were too young to have served.
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20001205.html
About 15 years ago I knew a man in his early 80's whose grandfather served in the Confederate Army.
Again, even if veterans and town folk lived till the 1930's and 1940's, someone had to have said something about the location of where 150 soldiers were buried.
Thanks. I was born in 1950. These guys died in my lifetime. I also remember my dad and grandparents telling me about civil war relatives, all from southeast Pennsylvania. I don't believe that one survived passed the 1920's though.
What was considered too young to have served?
Thirteen members of my family gave their lives to the Confederate cause during the Civil War. The youngest being 13 when he was killed at the Battle of Helena, in Arkansas. He was 12 when he enlisted.
We should honor these brave men who fought and died for there homes and familys and for the casue of freedom
From what I've read as much as 20% of all soldiers were younger than 18.
The legal age was 18 to join. But you could get your pops permission and join if you were younger. Most of the soldiers were 18-29.
http://www.battleoflewisburg.org/dysard.htm
You might enjoy this read its on William Dysard whose father fought in the Confederate Army
The soldiers that died here were from the staging of Corinth (Feb 1862) where 150,000 were collected before the Battle of Shiloh, aftermath of the Battle of Shiloh (April-May 1862)and the Siege of Corinth, and the Battle of Corinth (October 1862).
Knoxville wasn't "in the hands of the Confederacy" in 1862, you silly twit; Knoxville was IN the Confederacy!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.