On Memorial Day in 1866, barely a year after the end of the Civil War, a group of Columbus women decorated the Friendship Cemetery graves of Confederate soldiers — along with the graves of several unknown Union soldiers.
Now, more than 150 years later, a handful of Mississippi historians are determined to learn if any of those Union soldiers are still in the cemetery.
Local historian Rufus Ward, backed by the Garth-Billups Foundation in Columbus, has led the project to have a group of archaeologists from the University of Mississippi survey an unmarked section in the southwest corner of the cemetery to determine if there are any graves in the section, and if so, whose graves they could be.
Ward, alongside University of Mississippi archaeologist Tony Boudreaux and Mississippi State University’s John Marszalek — executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Library — all announced the project Thursday during a press conference at the cemetery.
“Columbus’ role in Memorial Day was being the place where both Union graves and Confederate graves were decorated with flowers in 1866,” Ward said. “And that stirred the conscience of the entire nation. Articles appeared in newspapers from Missouri to Maine. The New York Tribune carried an article praising the women of Columbus and Francis Finch, an attorney and supreme court judge in New York, wrote the poem ‘The Blue and the Gray’ and dedicated it to the ladies of Columbus. And that would be done because of the decorations of the graves that are somewhere around here, and we hope to find them.”
Fifty-one Union soldiers died in Columbus during the Civil War, Ward said. Of those, 40 were reportedly buried in Friendship Cemetery. At least 32 of those were moved to the Corinth National Cemetery in the 1800s. Ward said up to 10 may still be buried in Friendship.
The project will take place over one to two weeks hopefully in the fall, said Boudreaux, director of the Center for Archaeological Research at Ole Miss. Partly that’s so archaeologists won’t be out in the summer heat. However, they also hope to allow groups of school children to visit the cemetery during the project.
“You get into the Lara Croft ‘Tomb Raider’-Indiana Jones mentality,” Ward said, referencing two famous archaeologists from popular culture. “Archaeology fascinates kids. Bring them out and let them see it.”
Identifying the graves
The project will primarily involve the use of two different machines that will determine the presence of graves, Boudreaux said. One is ground-penetrating radar, which Boudreaux said works similarly to echo location. It emits electromagnetic pulses which can detect the presence of objects in the ground. The other is called a magnetometer, which detects and differentiates between magnetic signatures in different types of soil.
“Those instruments are fantastic,” he said. “If the soil conditions are right, the magnetometer can basically give you an X-ray, almost a map of the unmarked graves.”
That’s important, Ward said, because if the graves are in a row, that will indicate they are probably the graves of soldiers. If they’re spaced more randomly, that will indicate they are probably paupers’ graves, he said.
He and Boudreaux both added it will be good for students to see the equipment in person, after probably seeing or reading about similar equipment on TV or in magazines like National Geographic.
“If people read … National Geographic or they see TV, they see all these projects where you have remote sensing, technology that looks into the ground,” Ward said. “That’s going to be here. And for them to actually see, ‘Oh, this isn’t just on TV. It’s not just in National Geographic. It’s here.'”
Boudreaux agreed.
“We tend to think of archaeology as being exotic,” he said. “You know it takes place in Egypt, Greece, far away places. But there’s a lot of archaeology that takes place right here in Mississippi, right here in northeast Mississippi. … There’s some really significant sites here in our region. I think it’ll be good for folks to see that history and archaeology are very important right here at home.”
Boudreaux also said this is the only project he knows of, at least in Mississippi, where Union and Confederate soldiers are buried together — something Marszalek said is extremely important.
“Somebody asked about this earlier,” said Marszalek. “‘How’s it possible the Grant Presidential Library is in Mississippi?’ Well how’s it possible that Union soldiers are buried next to Confederate soldiers here in the heart of Mississippi? I think what we see happening here is at least a recognition that the war is over and we need to come together, we need to work together and we need to honor those people who died for a cause that they believed in.”
Memorializing the project
Boudreaux emphasized the project will be non-invasive.
“I think people hear archaeology, they immediately thing digging,” he said. “But … (this will be) completely non-invasive and after we leave there will be no sign whatsoever that we were even here.”
But that may not be entirely true. Ward hopes to eventually set up some sort of marker or memorial to commemorate the soldiers if it turns out they actually are buried there.
“It’s just I think increasing the awareness of history,” Ward said. “And the importance of all of history and the significance really locally of the Union soldiers buried next to Confederate soldiers all being decorated with flowers within a year of the end of the war. …That started the national movement of reconciliation. … The national press picked up on it. It went everywhere and talked about the healing, the reconciliation, the need for other places to do this.”
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