News from Around the South 10/6 – 10/13

GEORGIA: Group Honors Union Civil War Solders

They don hot woolen blue uniforms to participate in memorial services at Marietta National Military Cemetery, and also at the vast Union Army graveyard at the notorious Andersonville prisoner of war camp near Americus.

They march in parades, talk to students and civic groups, sponsor Eagle Scout awards and work tediously in dusty libraries, gingerly pouring over crumbling papers to identify graves of unknown U.S. soldiers, hoping to attach names to stark, stubby stone markers at Marietta National etched only with numbers of men who died at Peachtree Creek, Ezra Church, east Atlanta — or anywhere in Georgia.

And members of four Georgia “camps” of the Sons of Union Veterans sometimes even put up signs in places like the Marietta Square, hoping to recruit Georgians whose ancestors wore blue in what many southerners still call the War of North Aggression.

That’s right, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, not Sons of Confederate Veterans. Nationally, the SCV members outnumber the SUV 20,000 to 6,000.

Bill Miller, 65, often plays taps at patriotic ceremonies at Marietta National and at the Andersonville National Historic Site near Americus, where 13,872 Union dead are interred, and also at an annual event honoring Georgians who survived Pearl Harbor.

Miller, vice commander of the Georgia-South Carolina Department of the SUVCV, is a Pennsylvania native who, like a growing number of transplanted southerners, signed up for the SUV and is now an official of the Kennesaw camp. He is a Vietnam veteran and loves history.

About 70 members of four “camps” in Georgia — Lawrenceville, Kennesaw, Atlanta and Roswell — take part in living history programs, clean up and maintain cemeteries and hold memorial services at Marietta National the day before Memorial Day and at Andersonville two days before.

Later this month, a group of SUV members hold a ceremony in Andersonville to honor Union dead. And on Nov. 8, a “recreation” of the sacking of Marietta by Union troops is scheduled, with assistance from the SUV.

Miller says the SUV’s goal is “to honor those who fought and died to end slavery and save the Union.”

At a recent convention of the SUV, members dedicated a $20,000 marble monument to Wisconsin troops who fought at the Battle of Allatoona Pass.

“Brad Quinlin, one of our members, is constantly trying to identify the unknowns at Marietta National,” Miller says. “He has identified quite a few.”

At Marietta National, 10,312 Union soldiers are buried, including 2,996 under “unknown” markers.

Wallace B. Eberhard, professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Georgia and a member of the Lawrenceville camp, had four ancestors who wore the blue, including one imprisoned at Andersonville.

“We’re not into refighting the war,” Eberhard says. “It’s about remembering what these ordinary men did.”

The camps meet monthly, says Ray Wozniak, 66, head of the Lawrenceville group.

-ajc.com

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GEORGIA: New Bronze Statue at Confederate Memorial Cemetery

MARIETTA, Ga. —

Wax mold for the casting of the new Bronze Confederate Soldier.

Pilgrim indicated that most of the funding for the new monument came from the Georgia Division’s specialty tag funds and from donations by the local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp. “It’s part of our on-going recognition of the 150th Anniversary of the War Between the States,” said Pilgrim, “in honor of more than 3,000 Southern Heroes who rest in these hallowed grounds that made the ultimate sacrifice to protect their family and homes from an invading army.”

The Bronze Confederate Soldier is (5) five foot (10) ten inches tall in full military regalia and gear, holding his musket. He will be place atop a (5) five foot high granite pedestal centered in a new paver plaza. The octagon pavers will be true to historical period style with granite knee walls on three sides of the plaza. The engravings in front of the granite pedestal will include the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America with the Confederate motto of “Deo Vindice” — Latin for “God is our Vindicator.”  The East side will have the Marietta Confederate Cemetery Logo and the West side lists the (14) fourteen States that have Soldiers buried in the Marietta Confederate Cemetery.

Marietta Confederate Cemetery is the largest Confederate cemetery South of Richmond and is located at 395 Powder Springs St, Marietta, GA 30064. The Marietta Confederate Cemetery is one of the largest burial grounds for Confederate dead.

The City of Marietta and Friends of Brown Park will also be unveiling two new sections to the existing memorial walls. The new section will list 350 additional names of Confederate soldiers buried as “Unknowns” in the Confederate Cemetery. Brown Park now has four granite walls commemorating 1,150 Confederate soldiers buried in the adjacent Marietta Confederate Cemetery after two new memorial walls were installed recently.

The Bronze Confederate Soldier Monument as well as the two new memorial walls will be unveiled to the public at an unveiling ceremony this Sunday, October 19 at 1 p.m.

For more information about the Sons of Confederate Veterans or any of this year’s planned events to commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the War, contact the Georgia SCV at 404-456-3393 or online at www.GeorgiaSCV.org

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