Confederate Sailors Given Final Resting Place
in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC
March 5, 2005
| Work on this project began when it was discovered that there was a Mariner’s Cemetery located just under the Citadel’s Johnson Hagood Stadium. The cemetery, which pre-dated the War Between the States, extended from under the stadium out into the parking lot, but no headstones remained to be able to identify the exact locations. A plat was used to begin the exhumation of the remains of our Confederates buried there. | |
| Unknown SailorsIn 1993 the first stage of removing the remains began. SCV4, UDC4 and the Children of the Confederacy initiated this first exhumation. There were 13 Confederates removed at that time and reinterred in the Magnolia Cemetery Soldiers Ground. (The CHT was formed this same year.) |  |
| In 1999, the CHT was granted permission to work. This time, 22 Confederates and one child were removed. A very fitting procession and memorial service was held for them. Their remains were buried at Magnolia Cemetery Soldiers Ground on November 12, 1999.
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| First Hunley CrewFive Confederate sailors lost their lives on August 29, 1863, while the testing of the H. L. Hunley submarine.During the 1999 exhumation, we also recovered this first crew of the H. L. Hunley Submarine. These crew members were reburied in Magnolia Cemetery on March 25th, 2000. It was a very well organized and memorable procession of horse-drawn carriages, one for each coffin that was draped with the Confederate Flag. The procession began at White Point Gardens at the Battery and proceeded for four and a half miles to Magnolia Cemetery. On August 29th, 2003, the 140th Anniversary, headstones engraved with the name, date of death and First Crew of the Hunley were placed during a small ceremony at the Hunley Plot in Magnolia Cemetery. | |
| The Final ChapterOur last venture was granted in June 2004, once the Johnson Hagood Stadium was demolished. The CHT members worked in extremely hot weather and very wet ground to gather the remains of the last Confederates buried there. But the sweat and tears of these folks have completed a long journey and now we will have a fitting memorial service and burial on March 5, 2005. The procession will start at the gates of Magnolia Cemetery at 1:00 PM and proceed to Soldier’s Ground for interment. Rev. Lynn Bailey of St. Johannes Lutheran Church and Rev. Pauley of Sunrise Presbyterian Church will conduct the service. Everyone is invited. | |
| Stuhrs Funeral Home will provide their hearses to bring the caskets to the cemetery where the pallbearers will remove them and proceed to where the service will take place at the Soldiers Ground Monument. | |
| We would like to invite each and every one of you to attend. | |
| Confederate Heritage Trust, Inc. is a non-profit organization and can accept memorials to offset expenses incurred for this endeavor and many other events in which it is involved. To honor of these dedicated men, memorials can be mailed to CHT P. O. Box 62738 Charleston, SC 29419-2738 |
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| For all these memorials, the caskets have been hand made by various members of the Confederate Heritage Trust in the traditional pine wood.
Click here for a 3/6/05 newspaper article on the March 5, 2005 funeral. |
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