Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/196

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176

��Our National Cemeteries.

��nidst of ten thousand graves of the lOldiers and sailors of the department of the South and South Atlantic block- ading squadron. The dead interretl in these thirty acres of graves are : known, 4,748, unknown, 4,493; total, 9,241. Among the trees planted in this ceme- tery is a willow, grown from a branch of the historic tree which once over- shadowed the grave of Napoleon at St. Helena.

Generals Thomas W. Sherman and John G. Foster, who commanded that department, and Admirals Dupont and Dahlgren, who commanded that squad- ron, all died in their Northern homes since the peace, and their graves are not to be looked for here. The same may be said of hundreds of mihtary and naval officers who performed valu- able services on these shores and along these coasts, and have since " passed over to the great majority."

That neither General Strong nor General Schimmelfennig is buried here might be accounted for by the fact that, though they died by reason of their having served in this department, they died at the North. But even General Mitchell, whose flag of command was last unfurled in this department, who died in Beaufort, and was originally buried under the sycamores of the Episcopal churchyard, now sleeps in the shades of Greenwood, and not (as he would probably have preferred, could he have foreseen this cemetery) among the brave men whom he commanded.

The best known names among those here buried (to use a pardonable Hibernianism) are among the " un- known." For here, as we may believe, in unknown graves, rest the remains of Colonel Robert G. Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (colored), Colonel Haldimand S. Putnam, of the

��Seventh New Hampshire, Lieutenant- Colonel James M. Green, of the Forty- eighth New York, and many other gal- lant officers and men who were killed in the assault on Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, and who were first buried by the Confederates in the sands of Morris Island.

Many a Northern college is repre- sented here. Among those to whom tablets have been erected in the Memo- rial Hall of Harvard University, who are buried here, besides Colonel Shaw, are Captains VVinthrop P. Boynton and William D. Crane, who were killed at Honey Hill, November 30, 1864 ; and Captain Cabot J. Russell, who fell with Shaw at Fort Wagner. Yet these are but the beginning of the list of the sons of Massachusetts who rest in this " garden of graves."

Among the many gallant men of the navy buried here is Acting-Master Charles W. Howard, of the ironclad steam - frigate New Ironsides, #hom Lieutentant Glassell shot during his bold attempt to blow up the New Ironsides with the torpedo steamer David, October 5, 1863. Another is Thomas Jackson, coxswain of the Wabash, the beau ideal of an Ameri- can sailor, who was killed in the battle of Port Royal, November 7, 1861.

Death, Hke a true democrat, levels all distinctions. Still, it may be mentioned that Lieutenant-Colonel William N. Reed, who was mortally wounded at Olustee while in command of the Thirty- fifth United States colored troops, February 20, 1864, was, while living, the highest officer in rank, whose grave is known here. Other gallant officers, killed at Olustee, are buried near him. Among these, probably, is Colonel Charles W. Fribley, of the Eighth United States colored troops ; though

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