Lieut. Walsh’s Admirer(s) Return
Being a fan of local history, things that take place after nightfall, and good mysteries, I was incredibly intrigued by a story I read last year in the N&O. In it, Josh Shaffer (my favorite local journalist), tells the tale of a person or persons who for the last 20 years have decorated the tombstone of a rebel soldier buried in the Confederate Cemetery of Oakwood:
Each April, a stranger creeps into Oakwood Cemetery and drapes a single gravestone with a black sash. He lights a candle in tribute to a doomed Confederate hanged for firing a last-ditch shot at Raleigh’s Yankee occupiers. … After 20 years, the soldier’s secret admirer remains a small-time legend among history buffs who like to guess at his identity. The guessing begins anew each April 13, the death date of the hotheaded Texan with no known first name.
As I’ve come to know it, Raleigh surrendered to Union troops without a fight. Despite this, the city and the surrounding area are rich in Civil War history, in addition to the Confederate Cemetery. One example is the Richard B. Haywood House, where Raleigh resident Dr. Haywood toasted the end to the war with Union Generals Francis P. Blair and Tecumseh Sherman in the alcove of the house.
Considering that no major battles took place here, I’ve always been puzzled by the number of Civil War dead buried here. Not just in the Oakwood Cemetery, but in the Federal Cemetery on East Davie St. and Rock Quarry Road as well. Can anyone shed light on why this is?
Although I wasn’t able to solve the mystery of the stranger decorating the grave, I have to say that it was pretty exciting to see the decorated tombstone in person, for the first time. It’s possible I missed the person(s) by a matter of minutes, or hours.
On the off chance that the person(s) responsible stumble across this article, I’d like to say thanks for doing something interesting to stir peoples’ interest in local history.
For information on the story of Lieut. Walsh’s last stand (and subsequent execution) for his shots at Union sholdiers, check out the article from last year in the News & Observer.
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS feed
Subscribe to posts by Email
Sign up for the Newsletter
04/13/2009
Re: Civil War dead buried in the area — the national cemeteries (e.g. at Gettysburg, Arlington) accepted Union soldiers, while confederate soldiers were sent home for burial.
Side note: Arlington National Cemetery was literally built in Robert E. Lee’s front yard. The Supreme Court ordered Congress to pay his heirs $150,000 for improperly taking the land.
04/13/2009
It’s a great story (a pals claims Walsh’s horse slipped right where Glenwood meets Morgan) but judging from the muddled info that’s come down over the years, I’ve found it hard to avoid leaning toward the conclusion that Walsh was a drunken embarrassment whose stupid potshots quite possibly endangered the city of Raleigh (whose main newspaper was, let’s not forget, something of a minor hotbed of resistance to Jefferson Davis and the war).
04/14/2009
Raleigh Rambles has posted some additional info on the Lieut Walsh mystery stranger http://raleighrambles.wordpress.com/
John — Another reason Raleigh buried so many Civil War dead is because there were several wartime hospitals here — most notably Pettigrew Hospital. The Confederate Cemetery was established in 1867 in order to accommodate the removal of bodies from the hospital site, which had been appropriated by the Federal authorities for the burial of Union soldiers (now known as the National, aka Federal, Cemetery).
http://www.raleighpublicrecord.org/featured/2009/02/15/raleighs-confederate-cemetery/
04/16/2009
For a riveting account of the Fall of Raleigh –including the Lieut Walsh incident — visit Raleigh Public Record and listen to Ernest Dollar’s captivating story.
http://www.raleighpublicrecord.org/featured/2009/04/14/the-civil-war-comes-to-raleigh-part-i/comment-page-1/#comment-237
06/09/2009
Other factors contributing to the burial of so many Confederate soldiers in Raleigh are:
– It was on a major railroad line.
– There was a strong contingent of Confederate women in the area who raised money to have NC soldiers removed from battleground graves (mostly in VA and PA) and reburied in their home state.
If a family was wealthy enough, they might send someone with a wagon to travel many miles to return the body of a fallen son after learning of his death. Unfortunately, few were able to do so.
The post-war reburial movement was quite active in the decade following the CW, as was the movement to honor the dead with monuments. It was strongly felt that Confederate dead should be buried in their native soil, and that they should be honored with statues and markers.
Most Southern towns had some sort of women’s organization that participated in these efforts.
These ladies would take up “subscriptions” for funds to recover the bodies of fallen soldiers, often removing them from battlefield graves or temporary cemeteries in other states. In many cases, the bodies were removed from the temporary graves and sent to Richmond for identification (where possible) and then further removal to the soldier’s home state.
The railroads made much of this possible, and most of the larger Confederate cemeteries are to be found in cities that were served by existing rail lines.
08/16/2009
I’m interested in some of the local hauntings that are well known in your town, could you email me something on them?
03/02/2012
I found this info about why so many Confederate soldiers were buried at Oakwood.
I’ll quote the author and historian Michael Hardy, from his article “North Carolina and the Civil War”.
Oakwood Cemetery had its origin during the occupation of Raleigh by General Sherman’s Union troops. Prior to that, Confederate soldiers were buried at Raleigh’s Rock Quarry Cemetery [later renamed Raleigh National Cemetery] alongside Union casualties. After General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Raleigh started to become flooded with wounded Union troops. [As more and more of them died, larger burial facilities were needed.] The Federal Army wanted Rock Quarry Cemetery all to themselves, for a National Cemetery for Union dead.
In 1867, when the Ladies Memorial Association of Wake County was formed, their mission was to “protect and care for the graves of our Confederate soldiers.” The reason that it was the “Ladies Memorial Association” was that men were banned by the Federal government from meeting in large groups.
The ladies acquired a piece of property from Henry Mordecai and began to clean and level the property. Their goal was to move the Confederates interred at the Rock Quarry Cemetery, and others buried in the surrounding area, to the new Confederate cemetery. There were an estimated 500 Confederates interred at the Rock Quarry Cemetery.
*On February 22, 1867, the group received a letter from the Federal commander in Raleigh. All Confederates had to be moved from Rock Quarry Cemetery immediately to make room for a National Cemetery.
The Ladies Memorial Association set about work. Volunteers disinterred the [nearly 500] Confederate graves and began moving them to the new cemetery.
Their progress was too slow for the Federal government, and in March 1867, the Federal commandant issued a letter, stating that if the Confederate dead were not moved by the given date [three days later], “their remains would be placed in the public road.” [Can you BELIEVE that?!] By the end of March, the ladies and their volunteers had finished the work.”*
Information taken from website: The Cemetery Traveler
http://thecemeterytraveler.blogspot.com/2011/01/oakwood-and-confederate-cemetery.html