It Happened Here --Veterans Laid to Rest

Cemetery on Turnpike Rd., Cambridge

                

                                                                 

Across New York there 

are many NYSHMs

marking the graves 

of veterans

 

Encampment outside the walls of Ft. Ticonderoga

Very often on Colonial, Revolutionary or War of 1812, battlefields or encampments these are the only markers; the individual graves are unmarked.

Ft. Pike, Pike Rd., Sackets Harbor

The Graves of some 200 War of 1812 American Soldiers were lost to history until accidentally rediscovered in 1988!

Riceville Cemetery, Riceville Rd. Mayfield

Others are remembered in
cemeteries far from where
they were buried.

                                                                                               

Salem Cemetery, Archibald St., Salem

 Many veterans who survived their battles, and returned to live in their communities and live out their natural lives are remembered in community cemeteries, or in single family plots     

Two Albany Co. Militiamen who
may have served at the battle of
Saratoga lie buried in a plot off
of Creble Rd. near Rte. 9W,                     South Bethlehem

Up until WWI recruits from an area/community
 often served together in one unit. If that unit
came under heavy attack or saw repeated heavy
action it might be decimated.  The result
could be catastrophic for the communities from
which they came, for years to come.  In the Civil War tiny Hartford, NY, in northern Washington County contributed 65 of 134 men enlisted in Company E of the 123 Regiment, New York Volunteers, in one day. Fourteen Hartford men from that company died. If the casualty averages hold for that unit, 2x that number would have suffered wounds and half of them would have resulted in amputations!

With nine others who died in five other units, the men of Hartford might have suffered some 69 casualties, dead and wounded!

It may come as a surprise that New York is also home to one of the larger northern Civil War cemeteries of Confederate veterans. In 1864 Elmira's Camp Rathbun, built to train Union army inductees from central New York, was converted into a prisoner of war camp. Before long, the prison was grossly overcrowded and with appropriations falling behind increased
need, prisoners were reduced to starvation rations. With inadequate housing (some 2000 remained housed in tents well into the New York winter) alarming numbers succumbed to disease. By war's end only the infamous Confederate prison camp,  Andersonville, would see a higher death rate*.

Confederate Graves At Woodlawn National Cemetery

Confederate Monument

Perhaps a single bright spot in this rather dismal episode was the work of one man,  John W. Jones, a former escaped slave charged with burying the 2973 Confederate dead from Elmira Prison.  Jones meticulously buried each veteran, recording the location of each grave and preserving each soldier's identity, so that in later years individual monuments could be erected to the veterans. 

Union graves at
Woodlawn National
Cemetery, Elmira

Church St., Valatie

Throughout New York 
State there are NYSHMs
attesting to the sacrifice
of New York's veterans
and the communities 
they came from.





*A future post will be devoted to "Hellmira".



Next Week--Z. Pratt (Part 2) Farmer, Banker, Soldier, Monument Maker