Marietta, Pennsylvania knows how to do it right. The Philadelphia Inquirer has an on-line article about the efforts of Catherine Tucker to see that Civil War veterans buried in her town were properly recognized. Seems seven headstones (of twenty originally set) for black veterans had either deteriorated to the point of invisibility or been stolen. She worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get new ones made and installed. "An amateur historian, who had a grocery bag full of new books in her home on Thursday, Tucker spent two years researching the history of the Bethel cemetery. Besides the Civil War soldiers (several of whom were members of the 32d Regiment, United States Colored Infantry, organized in Philadelphia in 1864), it includes four black veterans of World War I, seven of World War II, and five of the Korean War. She had the names of the seven men with lost gravestones - Pvt. Joseph Maze, Pvt. John Knight, Pvt. Andrew McCurdy, Pvt. Asa M. Springs, Pvt. Isaac Thompson, Pvt. Zachariah White and Musician Glenalvin Walker - and she carefully compiled each man's service record to present to the VA. Maze, born a slave in the South, was drawn into the Confederate Army as a wagon driver. According to a 1931 article in the Lancaster Sunday News, he was at the surrender of Confederate troops at Appomattox, Va., and later drove Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on a tour of Marietta. One of the existing Civil War headstones is for a man who fought in the 54th Massachusetts regiment.
26 May 2008
Civil War for the day
Marietta, Pennsylvania knows how to do it right. The Philadelphia Inquirer has an on-line article about the efforts of Catherine Tucker to see that Civil War veterans buried in her town were properly recognized. Seems seven headstones (of twenty originally set) for black veterans had either deteriorated to the point of invisibility or been stolen. She worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get new ones made and installed. "An amateur historian, who had a grocery bag full of new books in her home on Thursday, Tucker spent two years researching the history of the Bethel cemetery. Besides the Civil War soldiers (several of whom were members of the 32d Regiment, United States Colored Infantry, organized in Philadelphia in 1864), it includes four black veterans of World War I, seven of World War II, and five of the Korean War. She had the names of the seven men with lost gravestones - Pvt. Joseph Maze, Pvt. John Knight, Pvt. Andrew McCurdy, Pvt. Asa M. Springs, Pvt. Isaac Thompson, Pvt. Zachariah White and Musician Glenalvin Walker - and she carefully compiled each man's service record to present to the VA. Maze, born a slave in the South, was drawn into the Confederate Army as a wagon driver. According to a 1931 article in the Lancaster Sunday News, he was at the surrender of Confederate troops at Appomattox, Va., and later drove Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on a tour of Marietta. One of the existing Civil War headstones is for a man who fought in the 54th Massachusetts regiment.
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