Winchester National Cemetery part 4

The final installment of monument pics from the Winchester National Cemetery is a few from New England.

The 13th Connecticut's. It is rather simple as the other side only lists the regiment's various engagements.
The 12th Connecticut's. It also only lists the regiment's various engagements and leaves no mention of what it did in the campaign.
The 18th Connecticut's. Yet another one that only lists the regiment's various engagements.
Vermont. This is for a particular regiment but it worn down such that the number cannot be read. It appears to be a single digit, maybe the 5th, 6th or 8th. It does list the names of some men who were casualties so with further research it would be possible to figure it out.

8th Vermont's monument.
Detail of the 8th Vermont's monument. It reads: "Honor the Brave. Erected to commemorate the bayonet charge of the Eighth Vermont Vol's led by Genl Stephen Thomas Sept 19, 1864. Committed to the care of those once a brave foe now our generous friend. Gift of comrade Herbert F. Hill Boston, Mass. Dedicated Sept 19, 1885."

Winchester National Cemetery part 3

A few Massachusetts monuments:
The state monument.
The 34th Massachusetts monument with a bust of Wells on top.
The 3rd Massachusetts cavalry monument. It says that the regiment lost 207 killed and wounded but doesn't say out of how many. But for an 1864 engagement 207 had to be a pretty large percentage.
The 38th Massachusetts monument. It list the names of the men who lie in unknown graves. I thought that was a nice touch. Obviously the regiment knew these men died in this vicinity but when the cemetery was built not every one of them had a gravestone with their name. So a very nice touch by the survivors to remember the men that otherwise might have disappeared into the shadows of history.

Winchester National Cemetery part 2

New Hampshire's monument. Hard to read but the names of the killed are listed on the sides of the monument.
Monument to the 114th New York. Back side says the regiment lost 188 of 315 men at 3rd Winchester (September 19, 1864) holding an advance defensive line. Then at Cedar Creek a month later it lost another 127 men, out of 250 engaged.

Detail of the 114th New York's monument.
Pennsylvania state monument, which reminds me very much of the Wisconsin state monument at Shiloh.
Close up of the top of the Pennsylvania monument.
123rd Ohio's monument.

Winchester National Cemetery

Across the street from the Confederate cemetery is the National Cemetery. This land was part of the battlefield for the 3rd battle of Winchester, as this sign indicates.
A general shot of the cemetery.
Monument for the 6th Corps. Its pretty rare to find a monument for a corps, in fact no others currently come to mind.
Detail of the 6th Corps monument showing colored tiles to denote divisions just like corps badges did during the war.

Winchester Confederate Cemetery part 5

Here are a few more scenes from the Winchester cemetery that I found interesting.

A marker for the 3rd battle of Winchester. This site was a cemetery during the war (though much smaller) and was part of the fighting during the third battle to be called Winchester.
A modern marker for the women of Winchester. A very neat colorful marker.
Turner Ashby's grave. I don't know too much about this cavalry leader since he died so early in the conflict. Maybe if he had lived a few more years his reputation would be more well known.
Grave of General Robert Johnston. Fought with Lee and Jackson. It says he was wounded 7 times, pretty remarkable.
Grave of General Archibald Godwin. He was killed in the 3rd battle of Winchester. Somewhere I read that he was killed near this very spot but that seems hard to believe.
A few other personal graves on the edges of the Confederate section.

Finally a panoramic, moving right to left, showing about a third of the cemetery.

Winchester Confederate Cemetery part 4

There is also a large monument to the unknown Confederate dead in the cemetery. I think its one of the few monuments I've seen where the soldier's musket is pointed into the ground like this.

Grouped around it are four markers for individual battlefields. There is quite a bit of open ground around these markers but it is hard to tell where exactly these unknown are buried.

Winchester Confederate Cemetery part 3

The final batch of state monuments, including the plainest one. Come on Texas you gotta try harder than that. :)

Tennessee: Texas:
Virginia:

Winchester Confederate Cemetery part 2

A few more state monuments. As you can see from this selection some are pretty new (Mississippi) and some are pretty old.

Maryland: Mississippi:
North Carolina:
South Carolina:

Winchester Confederate Cemetery

While getting some materials reading for the Rocky Mountain Civil War roundtable's study group next study, Stonewall's Valley Campaign, (man, that is a mouthful) I remembered the two fabulous cemeteries in Winchester that Mike and I visited last April as part of the most recent study group trip.

The Confederate cemetery is named after Stonewall Jackson. Over 3000 dead are buried here though most appear to be from the 1864 fighting. Each state's dead is buried in its own section with a state monument. Some of the monuments are clearly of modern placement while others appear to be quite old. This reminded me of the cemetery at Carnton except that each of those state monuments is identical and the dead are buried much differently. Ok so I guess the only thing similar is that each cemetery has a state monument and are amazing places to visit.

Here are a few state monuments, more to follow in the coming days.


Alabama:
Florida:
Georgia:
Louisiana:

Winchester

After spending half the day in trekking up and down Maryland Heights, plus some wandering around Harper's Ferry, we headed up the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester. Neither of us had ever been there so our first stop was the town Visitor's Center. She suggested a few sites downtown and gave us brochures for the driving tour, though we took them knowing we didn't have that kind of time as Winchester was not our last intended stop of the day. The first site suggested was the old courthouse (below) but it was closed which seemed very odd because it was 4 pm on a Tuesday. Next to our parking spot was some sort of chamber of commerce building that happened to be having a Kunstler exhibit. We walked the halls a bit but ran into no other people and were starting to wonder why anyone would visit Winchester.
The next stop was amazing. It was Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters. I went in not expecting much after the two earlier letdowns but this is truly a gem. This made our day. They have an amazing collection of Jackson stuff and Civil War stuff in general. Unfortunately they did not allow pictures inside so I can't share pics with you. One room was setup just like it was when Jackson was there. Apparently he liked the house so much that he described his room in great detail to his wife and those letters were used to replicate the room later. Jackson liked the desk so much that after he left the owner packed the desk away, quite literally the last person to use that desk was Jackson. His prayer table was also there. My loyalties are not with the Confederacy, so I don't want you to think I'm gushing over artifacts of my beloved Confederacy, I'm gushing over fascinating artifacts of the war. That stuff was cool enough but then our guide also showed us the chest that held the diplomatic papers that were being cared by Mason and Slidell when the whole Trent Affair erupted. Mike and I left thinking that it was sad that this place didn't list some of these gems in its brochure, it might get a few more visitors. Our guide said she thought they average about 20 people per day. I wonder how a place stays open with that sort of attendance. It was an amazing place that I'd gladly visit again.

Our next stop was the Stonewall Confederate Cemetery inside of the Mount Hebron Cemetery. Winchester was fought over a ton, locals said the town changed hands 74 times. That equates into a lot of fighting and a lot of dead. The Confederate section had monuments for each state, some simple but some pretty ornate. This also was land that was part of one of the five major battles in the Winchester area. Turner Ashby is also buried here. In the future I might do a post that deals with all the various monuments in this cemetery, there were a lot, too many to post today. Across the street from the Confederate cemetery was a National Cemetery. This also had quite a few monuments. Some were placed in an area that had a bunch of dead from that state. Others were monuments that commemorated the battles. I guess in the absence of a huge battlefield park to dedicate monuments a national cemetery seemed like the next best place. Below is the Pennsylvania monument. It reminded me of the Wisconsin state monument at Shiloh, which is a favorite of mine.
Next stop, Front Royal and Skyline Drive.