----- Original Message ----- From: "Margie Daniels" <margie@majorinternet.net> To: <GACRAWFO-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 5:17 PM Subject: [Crawford County] CV Mar 1911 Point Look out > MONUMENT AT POINT LOOKOUT, MD. > > [From the Baltimore Sun Correspondent, Washington.] > > A large masonry monument is to be erected at Point Lookout, Md., by the United States government in memory of 3,384 Confederate soldiers and sailors who died in Northern prisons during the war and are buried in that vicinity. > > A contract for the construction of the monument has been let by the War Department, but it could not be built without authority from Congress, as the Foraker act, passed in 1906, providing for the marking of the graves of Confederates who died in Northern prisons, directed the War Department to erect over every such grave a white marble headstone. > > This work has been in progress during the past four years under the direction of former Governor Oates, of Alabama, whom the President appointed commissioner for that purpose. Governor Oates died last October, and since that time former Senator James H. Berry, of Arkansas, has been in charge of the work. In executing the law General Oates and General Berry have found in several places, among them Point Lookout, that the remains of Confederates had been removed from the places of original burial, and in the reinterment the identity of the remains had been lost, making it difficult to erect separate headstones. * * * > > Point Lookout is at the southern extremity of the peninsula separating the Potomac River from Chesapeake Bay. A large prison camp was maintained there during the war, and many Confederate soldiers and sailors died there. A prison cemetery was established near the camp, where 3,384 were buried. Some years after the close of the war a small tract of land was acquired by the State of Maryland at some distance from the original place of interment. There the remains of the Confederate dead were reinterred and a small monument built to their memory. The transfer of the remains was carried on under such conditions that General Berry believes it practically impossible to erect the small marble tablets with any assurance that they would indicate the resting places of the Confederates in whose memory they were to be erected. > > In a letter received by Senator Warren from Secretary of War Dickinson the statement is made that in view of the uncertainty of identification the proper authorities of Maryland refuse to permit the establishment of the small marble markers, but are willing to permit the erection of a central monument containing tablets upon which the names of the individual Confederates can be inscribed. A contract has therefore been let for the construction at Point Lookout of a central mass of masonry of suitable form on which are to be placed bronze tablets containing the names of the dead. The monument is to be completed by September, 1911. > > To grant legislative authority for this work Senator Warren reported to the Senate a joint resolution, which was passed, granting authority to erect the monument and extending the Foraker act for two more years. Otherwise its provisions would expire February 26, 1911. > > General Berry reports that 14,617 separate headstones have been placed over the graves of Confederate sodiers under the Foraker act, while the monuments to 4,400 more at Oakwood Cemetery, Chicago, and to 3,384 at Point Lookout will bring the total to 22,401 by next September, leaving only a few hundred more graves to be marked. > > > > ==== GACRAWFO Mailing List ==== > "Not for fame or reward, not for place or rank, not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity; but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it; these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all, - and died." > --Rev. Dr. Randolph McKim (inscription on Confederate soldiers monument, Arlington National Cemetery) > >