Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
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Posted on 01/13/2003 12:22:11 PM PST by Rebeleye
It might seem odd for the Sons of Confederate Veterans to dig up and rebury two black Union soldiers to prevent their graves from collapsing into a ravine. On Feb. 22, during Black History Month, they will rebury the remains with military ceremonies in new wooden coffins under cleaned and repaired tombstones.
(Excerpt) Read more at clarionledger.com ...
But it makes perfect sense to Ed Funchess.
"We want to see to the fallen. It doesn't matter to us which side they were on," said Funchess, a member of Stockdale Rangers SCV Camp of McComb.
On Saturday, SCV members exhumed the remains at Grand Gulf Military Monument Park west of Port Gibson, and placed them in body bags to be stored at a McComb funeral home.
On Feb. 22, during Black History Month, they will rebury the remains with military ceremonies in new wooden coffins under cleaned and repaired tombstones.
"This will be a full color guard deal," said park manager Bud Ross. "We're going to try to do it up right."
Funchess became interested in the situation after reading an article by Walt Grayson in the August issue of Today in Mississippi magazine about the grave of Jackson Ross in Grand Gulf Cemetery.
"Over the decades, a gully has been ever widening near his grave," Grayson wrote. "It's so near that now ... he is only about two feet from the side of a 30-foot-deep crevasse inching ever closer to his resting spot."
A little investigation revealed that a grave on the other side of the gully, belonging to Wesley Gilbert, is likewise threatened.
Three SCV groups, or camps, got involved: Stockdale Rangers, Col. Moses Jackson Camp of Liberty and Brookhaven Light Artillery.
One option discussed was lining the sides of the gully with concrete riprap, but Funchess said that would be costly and unfeasible. It would be simpler just to dig up the graves and rebury the remains elsewhere in the cemetery.
"We felt like the only thing that could be done to save these guys, outside of spending $100,000, is to exhume them," he said.
Funchess wrote a proposal and got approval from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, Department of Archives and History, Department of Health and the Claiborne County Coroner.
He said the Sons of Confederate Veterans are glad to rescue the graves of black Union soldiers.
"We don't care who they were," he said. "They were soldiers who were combatants in the Civil War, and they need to be taken care of."
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Makes me proud to be an American, and here I am all teary-eyed at my keyboard.
Please note the slanderous bias built into our reporter's lead sentence.
What's odd about it? The SCV is an historical organization, not a racist organization like so many try to paint it.
Birth of Tha SYNDICATE, the philosophical heir to William Lloyd Garrison.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
Mississippi should do no less and will do no less to honor those buried in its soil, regardless of the color of their uniform and skin, blue or grey, black or white!
It only seems odd if you buy into the revisionist history that all Southerners were evil and all Yankees noble. Reality is usually a bit more complicated.
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