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One of my highlights every year is to attend the annual McGavock Confederate Cemetery Memorial Service, hosted by the United Daughter’s of the Confederacy, Franklin Chapter #14, at Carnton. Boy Scout Troop #137 will install a Confederate flag next to each of the 1,500 markers in the cemetery. The Boy Scouts have been doing this for 30+ years according to John Green, Commander.
The event kicks off at 2pm, rain or shine. There is always a guest speaker, Confederate re-enactors, and a babgpipe presentation.
Here is a link to last year’s service with a photo gallery.
I’ve blogged many times about the McGavock Confederate Cemtery. I’ve taken thousands of pictures over the years too. I wish I could have walked the rows of McGavock in 1866 to see what the cemetery looked like. No doubt, there were many wooden markers – like the Nix marker from Stone’s River – with the names of the soldiers scribbled for posterity.
Today, about half of the Confederates buried at McGavock are forever unknown to the ages. Certainly not forgotten, but sadly unknown. There were 225 soldiers placed in an Unknown section. Not even their ‘State identity’ is even known.
Another 333 unknowns are spread out in respective State sections throughout the cemetery, their State identity known, but not their names. So, of the total of 1,481 Confederate soldiers buried here, 780 are identified positively. Another 143 graves have some sort of identification, genuine or otherwise.
Loring’s Division (Lt. Gen. A.P. Stewart’s Corps) lost (killed) 334 men at Franklin. Gen Scott lost 126. Featherston lost 68, and Adams lost 43.
Featherston’s Brigade consisted of:
- 1st Battalion, Mississippi Sharpshooters ( 0 killed )
- 1st MS Infantry ( 6 killed)
- 3rd MS ( 14 killed )
- 22nd MS ( 8 killed )
- 31st MS ( 21 killed)
- 33rd MS ( 10 killed )
- 40th MS ( 9 killed )
Loring’s Division marched across what is now known as the Eastern Flank part of the Franklin battlefield, traversing the McGavock farm. What these men hardly knew was that they literally walked across ground upon which so many of them would be buried following the battle.
The 33rd Mississippi Infantry, Company K, lost at least six known, and perhaps several more buried in now unknown plots.
Here are pictures of the markers of identified 33rd MS, Company K men buried at McGavock.
Regarding Shaw, Jacobson writes: ” About ‘fifteen paces from the works’ Lt. Henry Clay Shaw saw the color bearer of the 33rd Mississippi fall with the flag. Shaw picked it up and scrambled to the parapet. As he tried to shove the staff into the dirt Shaw was killed, ‘his body falling in the trench, the colors falling in the works.”
See: Jacobson (For Cause: p. 322. Also: OR 45, pt. 1, p. 322, 331, 338, 430.
As you can see from the map below, Featherston’s men faced the Hoosier boys from Stiles’s Brigade on the far left Union flank.
Historian Eric Jacobson talks about Loring’s advance at the Battle of Franklin.
Jim Drury, Pipe Major, TN Scots Pipe Band plays Amazing Grace at the 2011 McGavock Confederate Cemetery Memorial service.
It was a very hot and windy day. The 46th TN reenacctors fired the salute.
The United Daughter’s of the Confederacy, Franklin Chapter #14, hosted the annual Memorial service today at Carnton. It was a blazing 94 degrees when Boy Scout Troop #137 arrived to install a Confederate flag next to each of the 1,500 markers in the cemetery. The Boy Scouts have been doing this for 30+ years according to John Green, Commander.
Just as the service began the wind whipped up furiously.
Here are a few sample pics of today’s service and here is the link to all 43 photos taken of the event.
Video from today’s event will be coming soon, check back.
Mississippi section at McGavock
Ronnie Mancrum
Boy Scout Troop #137 Commander John Green receives a plaque.
Once a year the United Daughter’s of the Confederacy hosts a memorial service at McGavock Confederate Cemetery on the grounds of Historic Carnton Plantation. With the assistance of a local Boy Scout’s troop and Civil War reenactor’s, the Confederate soldiers buried at McGavock, almost 1,500 of them, are remembered and honored.
Here’s a link to the 2010 memorial service blogpost and photo gallery.
I went on a tour of Carnton Plantation yesterday and our guide, James, told me about the November 17, 1866 edition of Harper’s Weekly. He showed it to me and it has a picture of McGavock Confederate Cemetery on the cover.
I promptly went home and checked eBay and . . . Voila! I’m no the proud of owner of this original HW edition for the princely sum of $19.95. Gotta love eBay!
The highlight of Blue Gray Days in Franklin every year is the touching illumination ceremony at dusk. Plan on attending this year’s ceremony on Saturday the 20th. The weather is suppose to be nice. Here are some pictures from last year’s event.
The color guard and band will enter the cemetery at 4pm. There will also be a period band and living history representations of Carrie McGavock and Col. W.D. Gale.
If you’re interested in volunteering to help light the candles – a real honor – contact Amanda Hall (amanda.hall@franklintn.gov).
“Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.”
- William Gladstone, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, circa 1870
Excerpted in On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery, Robert M. Poole
This blog has an entire section on the McGavock Confederate Cemetery in Franklin.
Here’s a Flickr photo gallery with hundreds of pictures of McGavock Cemetery.
Early afternoon showers threatened to dampen the June 6th, 2010 Memorial service hosted by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Chapter #14, but the sunshine broke through about 20 minutes before the start and even ended up being perfect.
See the 128 photo gallery set of the event on Flickr.
Longtime Franklin preservationist Gene McNeil spoke appropriate words of how we often forget unpleasant things in order to survive and move on. McNeil shared a nice story about his great grandfather who served in the eastern theater fighting at Gettysburg and the Wilderness campaign.
46th TN reenactor Robert Brooks gave a brief reading.
Jim Drury, Pipe Major with the TN Scots Pipe Band played the favorite hymn Amazing Grace on the bagpipes.
Nicholas Lane of BSA Troop #137 played taps.
Ronnie Mancrum was given a surprise plaque for his dedication and service to the cemetery.
Watch the interview with Mr Mancrum, discussing the restoration project of the 20th TN Confederate flag.
[Youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YfTcShwsM"]
See the 128 photo gallery set of the event on Flickr.
Here are a few photos from the ceremony but click the link above to see all of the photo gallery.
I recently attended the Civil War Show in Nashville and acquired several letters from a 63rd Indiana soldier named Addison Lee Ewing. Ewing was from Haubstat, Indiana and enlisted on 5/1/62, mustering in to Company C of the 63rd Indiana Infantry with the rank of 1st Sergeant. He resigned on 4/6/65 due to disability.
During his service he saw three promotions: 2nd Lt on 10/2/86, 1st Lt on 6/24/64, and finally to Captain on 10/1/64 (As of Co. I). He transferred from Company C to I on 11/6/64.
The 63rd Indiana became part of the Army of the Ohio in December 1862, staying with that organization until February 1865 when it was assigned to the Department of North Carolina.
The 63rd Indiana saw action at Second Bull Run, East Tennessee, Rocky Face Ridge and Resaca; Dallas, Lost Mountain, the Atlanta Campaign, and Hood’s Tennessee campaign, including Franklin and Nashville.
At Franklin (30 November 1864), the 63rd Indiana served on the far left Union flank with Israel N. Stiles’s brigade, along with the 120th and 128th Indiana regiments. These three Indiana regiments faced the onslaught of the Confederates under Scott and Featherston that fateful day.
I’ve written extensively on these Indiana regiments previously on this blog. Hundreds of Confederate soldiers from Alabama and Mississippi lost their lives trying to breach the Union left flank near the Nashville-Decatur Railroad as it buttressed up against the Harpeth River.
By the time of the Battle of Franklin, Addison Lee Ewing was Captain of Company I of the 63rd Indiana Infantry. I’ll say more soon, but here is a partial transcript of the letter Lee wrote to his wife on December 22nd, from Nashville (1864).
. . . Day before yesterday [would have been the Dec 20th], we was up at Franklin where there are hundreds of new made graves filled by the enemy. I went up into the old Breastworks where we lay and all over the front of our Brigade which is pretty well doted with rebble graves at our place there is 14 of Co. K of Miss[issippi] laying in a row. I see one grave marked Lt. J.P. See (sic), 55th Tenn. [This was J.P. Seed]. There are horses laying around almost on our works . . . .
I’m researching this more so come back soon to continue reading more about Lee’s accounts of Franklin and Nashville.
If citing this letter please use: Addison Lee Ewing letter (December 20, 1864). From the Kraig McNutt Civil War Collection.
It was a glorious evening in Franklin tonight as hundreds – perhaps even thousands – came out to Carnton Plantation to attend the 145th commemoration of the Battle of Franklin. 10,000 candles were illuminated and placed in scores of rows on the Eastern Flank at Carnton to honor the 10,000 estimated casualties that occurred at Franklin (November 30, 1864).
A full photo gallery of the event is here. Also check out my videos on my YouTube folder.
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