BGuthrie Photos: TN -- Fort Donelson Natl Battlefield -- Natl Cemetery

TN -- Fort Donelson Natl Battlefield -- Natl Cemetery:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FTDONC_140527_06.JPG: Hallowed Ground Fort Donelson National Cemetery was established in 1867 as the final resting place for Union soldiers and sailors who died during the Civil War and were buried in this area. The cemetery occupies the site of the second Fort Donelson built in 1863 by Union soldiers and freedmen from the nearby freedmen's village. Initially 670 Union soldiers (512 of them unknown) were reinterred here from battlefield graves, local cemeteries, and nearby towns. Among the Civil War soldiers buried here are five known and nine unknown soldiers from the United States Colored Troops. No longer active, the national cemetery also contains the remains of veterans who served the United States in later wars. The outer ring of headstones marks the graves of 62 soldiers from the 11th Illinois Infantry, killed resisting the Confederate breakout attempt of February 15, 1862. Judge James E. Rice, prominent Dover citizen and civilian aide to Gen. Gideon Pillow during the Battle of Fort Donelson, visits the national cemetery about 1880. Note the cannon used as gate posts.
2. FTDONC_140527_08.JPG: Cemetery Lodge This 1877 house served as office and quarters for the cemetery keeper until 1931. The design of the building is Second Empire (French), from the reign of Napoleon III (1852-1870). This architectural style is characterized by gables and a roof consisting of two slopes on all sides. The addition of a kitchen with porch in 1936 is only alteration. Today, this structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and serves as park staff quarters. It is not open to the public.
3. FTDONC_140527_15.JPG: The cannon had recently been redidicated
4. FTDONC_140527_57.JPG: Notice the last stone had the state name going out
5. FTDONC_140527_63.JPG: Again, the previous image had the state name come out, here it's engraved
6. FTDONC_140527_73.JPG: Freedmen's Camp After the Union victory at Fort Donelson, slaves escaping from nearby farms and iron foundries flocked to the area seeking freedom and protection. By March 1863 some 300 refugees lived here at the freedmen's camp that came to be known as "Free State." The camp contained houses, a school, and a church. It was scattered in and around the town of Dover and throughout the entire Union encampment. It was the largest of the freedmen's camps established around Forts Henry, Heiman, and Donelson, ad it lasted into the 1880s. The northern army used many of the residents of Free State as laborers to help build the Union Fort Donelson on part of the ground now occupied by the national cemetery. Benevolent societies, like the Western Freedmen's Aid Society, assisted the Union Army by providing clothing and teachers to the freedmen, and administering religious and medical services. Many enlisted in the Union army as Union States Colored Troops after Fort Donelson became an army recruiting station for African Americans in November 1863. These and others gave Union forces a decided edge in fighting the war in both the eastern and western theaters. "Such slaves as were within the lines at the time of the capture of Fort Donelson... will be employed in the quartermaster's department, for the benefit of Government." -- Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, General Order No. 14, February 26, 1862 Education was a major priority among former slaves. By 1864 over 100 students attended the freedmen's school at Fort Donelson, which received praise from teachers and military officials alike. Freedmen's Camps in Tennessee: In 1860 about 25 percent of Tennessee's people were slaves. With the fall of Fort Donelson and the advance of Union armies into the state, many ran away from their owners in search of freedom. This resulted in a network of contraband camps being set up across middle and west Tennessee.
7. FTDONC_140531_001.JPG: United States National Military Cemetery Fort Donelson Established Nov 1867 Interments 670 Known 158 Unknown 512
8. FTDONC_140531_023.JPG: Fort Donelson National Cemetery The Federal Army abandoned the Confederate fort sometimes after the February 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson and fortified the town of Dover. The town fortification was sufficient to repulse a Confederate attack during the Battle of Dover in February, 1863. The next month the Federals began building, and continued to fortify until 1865, an earthen fort where the National Cemetery is today. It is unusual that they too used the name "Fort Donelson" despite its association with the rebel cause. The Union camp apparently became a focal point for the new Freedmen. They performed much of the labor in the construction of the Union fort. The refusal of the Union commander to return them to their owners probably established the area as a refuge. Black veterans of the Civil War and Black Citizen employees were the first to be buried here after the Union battlefield dead had been reinterred. In the Act of July 17, 1862, Congress authorized the purchase of "cemetery grounds... to be used as a National Cemetery for soldiers who shall die in the service of the country." With the purchase of 15.35 acres in April 1867, Fort Donelson National Cemetery came into existence. The Union dead were disinterred from their burial places on the battlefield and local cemeteries and reinterred.
9. FTDONC_140531_028.JPG: The Fort Donelson Campaign "The blow was most disastrous and almost without remedy." -- Albert Sidney Johnston The February 1862 battle serves as a reminder of missed opportunities for the Confederacy and the first major strategic victory for the United States. The capture of Fort Donelson meant that major waterways and Confederate territories were seized. Nashville would be the first Confederate capitol to fall. The Confederate leadership would surrender at Donelson, but the estimated 13,000 Confederate soldiers did not lose their will to fight. Those soldiers spent six months biding their time in Union prison camps until they could rejoin the fight for the Confederate cause. Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant's Army would continue to push into the Deep South, capturing more Confederate territory, and prompting the exodus of thousands of enslaved African Americans to flee to Union camps. A new meaning of the war would evolve -- from one of restoration of the Union into a war for freedom. The First "Modern" War: The Civil War has been called the first "modern" war -- new technology, weaponry, and communications. The 1862 campaign for Fort Donelson was also a "first": the first use of ironclad gunboats, built for the shallow, inland waters of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee River valleys.
10. FTDONC_140531_038.JPG: Consequences of War "The real war will never get into books." -- Walt Whitman Confederate soldiers were pardoned to go home to their families, yet their homes were likely not as they remembered. The Southern economy was devastated by four years of war, and it would take decades for it to recover. The consequences of war extended far beyond the battlefield. The defeat of the Confederacy meant that all Americans would redefine the core democratic principles of government, citizenship, liberty, and equality. African Americans would begin new lives, and ironically, it may have been on the same farm or plantation where they were enslaved. In the process, both African American and White Americans would come to terms with a new social order that recognized the equality of all men, regardless of race or color. Hungry for Knowledge: For many African Americans, education was the foundation for equality and prosperity. Most former slaves had been denied an education by local or state laws. Schools were established at Fort Donelson and other Federal camps in the South as early as 1862. Reconstruction: The Reconstruction Period (1865-1877) allowed for Confederate states to gradually return to the Union. Each state was required to ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery, assured citizenship, and guaranteed the right to vote for all men. Civil War to Civil Rights: Political and cultural reconciliation between the North and South did come after the end of Reconstruction, but at a cost to the equality of African Americans. African Americas were denied basic civil rights, including the right to vote, and were marginalized by Jim Crow laws and segregation until the 1960s.
11. FTDONC_140531_041.JPG: McGuffey Reader: Primers, or readers, were used by adults and children alike at the Freedmen Schools at Fort Donelson.
12. FTDONC_140531_047.JPG: The American Civil War 150 Years Later The American Civil War (1861-1865) was the bloodiest conflict in our nation's history. Nearly every man, woman, and child was in some way affected by war. Over 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers perished. Families lost their homes and farms, and the South's economy was ruined. The war meant different things to different people. Enslaved African Americans, women, Native Americans, and immigrants thought, felt, and took action for different reasons. Why is this so important to remember? For one, the Civil War became a turning point for the nation. Before the war, citizens might have thought of themselves as Southerners, Midwesterners, or even as Virginians or Tennesseans. In the postwar period, families and veterans began to reconcile, and by this act, began to think of themselves as Americans. It also forced a nation to come to terms with the issue of slavery, and it redefined the Constitution's meaning of who was entitled to enjoy freedom and equality. In other words, the war transformed America. The Civil War Sesquicentennial: The Civil War Sesquicentennial (2011-2015) offers opportunities to rediscover the stories, sacrifices, and meanings behind what has been labeled the "Second American Revolution." National parks will commemorate this country's greatest national crisis by providing special events, exhibits, and programs. We encourage visitors to reflect on the Civil War and think about how its legacy may have affected their own.
13. FTDONC_140531_055.JPG: Why Did America Go to War? "The system of slavery is like holding a wolf by the ears: you don't like it but you don't dare let it go." -- Thomas Jefferson Nineteenth century Americans were progressive, focused on family and religion, and expanding into the West. The Industrial Revolution forever changed the North with railroads, factories, and a large urban working population. A new economic class emerged -- the Northern middle class -- citizens who were predominantly reformist, believing that American society could be changed by their efforts to abolish slavery, reform prisons, and properly educate youngsters. The majority of Southerners lived an agricultural lifestyle, much as their ancestors had done. The South was culturally isolated from the rest of the United States, but prosperous, because Southern farms and plantations provided raw materials, mainly cotton, for factories in the Northeast and Europe. Yet this prosperity was due in large part of the labors of four million enslaved African Americans. The Failure to Compromise: The issue of slavery dominated American politics, religion, and culture since its inception. Presidents, politicians, and the courts would try to find various solutions to maintain the balanced representation of slave and non-slaveholding states in Congress. The Missouri Compromise (1820) was the first and the Crittenden Compromise was the final attempt on the eve of war in 1861. The 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln had encouraged several Southern states -- who felt Lincoln and his Republican Party were a threat to their traditions and way of life -- to secede (or declare independence) from the United States. Eleven Southern states, including Tennessee in June 1861, would eventually form a new nation: the Confederate States of America. The Confederates believed they were reformers, arguing a return to the Founding Fathers' commitment to life, liberty, equality, and property. This war would be fought, as they saw it, as a war for self-government and states' rights. On April 12, 1861, the first shots of a war that would change America were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
14. FTDONC_140531_063.JPG: Changes for Southern Society "A war for the hearts and minds." -- Dr. Benjamin F. Cooling The next four years would bring confusion and sacrifice to families left behind. Martial law was declared, putting the US military in control of legal and judicial decisions. Schools and church meetings were suspended, and some families moved away from their homes and farms. Resistance from Southerners pushed the Union Army into a new phase of warfare: an irregular war or guerrilla war with locals. The Union post at Fort Donelson was often a target for attack from these guerillas [sic]. It created a state of distrust, hostility, and fear among neighbors. Army officials were suspicious of any young men who might be hiding in the countryside. Resistance also came from the formerly enslaved. Many left their owner's home, seeking freedom and safety at Union camps across the state: Fort Donelson, Clarksville, Nashville, Jackson, and Memphis. Their act of willful disobedience forced Army commanders -- eventually Congress and President Lincoln -- into making decisions about slavery. Slavery's demise directly hurt Confederate efforts to win the war: valuable labor and skills of enslaved African Americans would be used by the US Army. One woman saying to another, "Don't you think that Yankee must feel like shrinking into his boots before such high-toned Southern ladies as we!" as they wallk by Union soldier and ruins of Richmond. Richmond ladies going to receive government rations, an illustration in Harper's Weekly, June 1, 1865. Alfred R. Waud (Alfred Rudolph), 1827-1891 artist.
15. FTDONC_140531_070.JPG: How Did the Civil War Shape Today's America? "We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this." -- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address Battlefields, memorials, and cemeteries serve as reminders of the bloody contest of war. Patriotic organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Grand Army of the Republic would preserve the memory and sacrifices of soldiers. Military commanders like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant would be seen as heroes and protectors of American democracy. The Constitutional crisis between federal and state governments was finally resolved: the question of secession disappeared. The war also created a stronger Presidency, with great powers and prestige for Lincoln and his successors. It even transformed economics: the mobilization of war spurred the creation of stronger federal banks and a national currency. Preserved for Future Generations: In the 1930s the care of Civil War battlefields was entrusted to the National Park Service. Millions of visitors flooded to these battlefields during the Civil War Centennial in the 1960s.
16. FTDONC_140531_082.JPG: Preserved for Future Generations: In the 1930s the care of Civil War battlefields was entrusted to the National Park Service. Millions of visitors flooded to these battlefields during the Civil War Centennial in the 1960s.
17. FTDONC_140531_096.JPG: The Failure to Compromise: The issue of slavery dominated American politics, religion, and culture since its inception. Presidents, politicians, and the courts would try to find various solutions to maintain the balanced representation of slave and non-slaveholding states in Congress. The Missouri Compromise (1820) was the first and the Crittenden Compromise was the final attempt on the eve of war in 1861. The 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln had encouraged several Southern states -- who felt Lincoln and his Republican Party were a threat to their traditions and way of life -- to secede (or declare independence) from the United States. Eleven Southern states, including Tennessee in June 1861, would eventually form a new nation: the Confederate States of America. The Confederates believed they were reformers, arguing a return to the Founding Fathers' commitment to life, liberty, equality, and property. This war would be fought, as they saw it, as a war for self-government and states' rights. On April 12, 1861, the first shots of a war that would change America were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
18. FTDONC_140531_104.JPG: "Mary Brickerdyke helped nurse the wounded at Fort Donelson, and aided the wounded at 19 other battlefields, including Shiloh. It was said that soldiers would cheer her as they would a general."
19. FTDONC_140531_111.JPG: Three most common headstones: Unknown Dead 498 Civil War -- 4 Post Civil War Unknown Dead 6 Civil War Known Dead 151 Civil War -- 9 Post Civil War Since 1918 Fort Donelson and Memorial Day: "The 30th day of May, 1968, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.... In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such sitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit." -- From General Order No 11, Grand Army of the Republic, Washington, DC, May 5, 1868 Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, was officially proclaimed on May 5, 1868, by Gen. John A. Logan as national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veteran organization. Logan, who was wounded at Fort Donelson, issued General Order No. 11 marking May 30 as a day for honoring fallen comrades. Many southerners refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I when the holiday changed to honor all Americans who died in any war. Most states now celebrate the holiday the last Monday in May.
20. FTDONC_140531_114.JPG: Cemetery Guide: Fort Donelson National Cemetery, like many other national cemeteries, reflects popular 19th-century landscaping designs: open, green spaces, with graves and headstones laid out in a simple and orderly fashion, often with an artist flair, such as a heart-shaped arrangement around a flag pole. A graves roster is located here, and additional information may be obtained at the Fort Donelson Visitor Center.
21. FTDONC_140531_118.JPG: The 83rd Illinois was one of the occupation forces. Sometime during his service in Dover, David N. Graham of Company I sent this drawing to his wife, Clarra. It is the only known record of the armament at the Union fort.
22. FTDONC_140531_121.JPG: Fort Donelson National Cemetery The Federal Army abandoned the Confederate fort sometimes after the February 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson and fortified the town of Dover. The town fortification was sufficient to repulse a Confederate attack during the Battle of Dover in February, 1863. The next month the Federals began building, and continued to fortify until 1865, an earthen fort where the National Cemetery is today. It is unusual that they too used the name "Fort Donelson" despite its association with the rebel cause.
23. FTDONC_140531_124.JPG: The Union camp apparently became a focal point for the new Freedmen. They performed much of the labor in the construction of the Union fort. The refusal of the Union commander to return them to their owners probably established the area as a refuge. Black veterans of the Civil War and Black Citizen employees were the first to be buried here after the Union battlefield dead had been reinterred. In the Act of July 17, 1862, Congress authorized the purchase of "cemetery grounds... to be used as a National Cemetery for soldiers who shall die in the service of the country." With the purchase of 15.35 acres in April 1867, Fort Donelson National Cemetery came into existence. The Union dead were disinterred from their burial places on the battlefield and local cemeteries and reinterred.
24. FTDONC_140531_240.JPG: General Lee Gafford Date of birth: 2-6-1987 Date of death: 3-27-1968 Date of burial: 3-29-1968 Rank: CPL (I guess "General" is his first name, not his rank) Service Branch: ARMY War: WWI Status: VET [I ended up reporting this one. I found it odd that he was born 20 years after he died. Obviously, the date of birth was supposed to be in 1887, not 1987.]
25. FTDONC_140531_247.JPG: The Civil War Sesquicentennial: The Civil War Sesquicentennial (2011-2015) offers opportunities to rediscover the stories, sacrifices, and meanings behind what has been labeled the "Second American Revolution." National parks will commemorate this country's greatest national crisis by providing special events, exhibits, and programs. We encourage visitors to reflect on the Civil War and think about how its legacy may have affected their own.
26. FTDONC_140531_254.JPG: The Historic Cemetery Lodge dates back to 1877
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