Press Release February 24, 2005, from CHT:
At 1pm on Saturday, March 5, 2005 the Confederate Heritage Trust, Charleston, S.C. will reenter the bodies of twenty-one Confederate Sailors and Soldiers whose remains were recovered from beneath Johnson Hagood Stadium in June of 2004. None of the twenty-one bodies were identifiable. They are the last of sixty-one Confederate bodies recovered between 1993 and 2004 from beneath the Citadel’s football stadium. The Seaman’s Burial Ground Cemetery on the Ashley River was built over in 1948 when the new stadium was erected by the City of Charleston, S.C. The bodies are to be reentered in Magnolia Cemetery’s Confederate section in a solemn, honorable ceremony.
The Confederate Heritage Trust is a non-profit organization of heritage groups established to preserve Confederate history. It is composed of Secession Camp #4 Sons of Confederate Veterans, H.L. Hunley Camp #143 Sons of Confederate Veterans, Moultrie Camp #27 Sons of Confederate Veterans, South Carolina Ladies Auxiliary, Mary Yates Snowden Chapter Order of the Confederate Rose, 10th S.C. Volunteer Infantry, 27th S.C. Volunteer Infantry, and the Santee Light Artillery.
Randy Burbage, Chairman of the CHT said, “Our volunteers worked tirelessly under terribly hot, wet conditions for two weeks in June to recover these men’s bodies. We believe men who sacrificed their lives for the Confederacy deserve better than to be buried beneath the grandstands of a football stadium. We hope we can return their dignity and bury them with honor and respect in a much more suitable place.”
The ceremony will held at 1pm in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC on Saturday, March 5, 2005. Magnolia Cemetery is just off Meeting Street Road on Cunnington Street.
Randall B. Burbage,
Chairman, Confederate Heritage Trust
ANV Councilman, Sons of Confederate Veterans
1-843-553-3002
capt10sc@aol.com