It always seemed like a load of racist cr*p, until this…
Our copy of the “Magnolia Messenger,” the newsletter for the Friends of Magnolia Cemetery, arrived today. Magnolia is a 100-acre wonder within easy walking distance of our house, full of Victorian funerary extravangance, huge magnolia trees, azaleas, old roses, wildflowers…in short, a great place to bicycle, walk, or jog, and I’m there with the dog several times a week.
Anyway. Being of that era, naturally it contains “Confederate Rest,” quite near the National Cemetery, each with its somber, orderly rows of headstones. An enormous Stars & Stripes flies over the National Cemetery, and a much more modest Stars & Bars over the boys in grey. The latter always makes me wince a little, especially at the sentimental (and thriving) plantings of rosemary beneath it.
But in today’s Messenger I read that they’re going to have a funeral for that body they found in the wreck of the CSS Alabama. “This veteran, who went down with his ship, will be buried in Magnolia Cemetery. The remains were conveyed to the Raphael Semmes Camp 11, Sons of Confederate Veterans, by the Navy Historic Center, through the gracious services of the CSS Alabama Association. The funeral will take place on July 28, 2007, at the Confederate Rest in Magnolia Cemetery. A memorial service and wake will also take place. For more information, please contact scvsemmes.org. I [Mark Halseth] would like to personally thank all involved for bringing one of our own home, 147 years after he went down with his ship.”
Okay, so the wake seems a bit much. And Lord only knows what the Sons will do to embarrass us all. But still…it’s so poignant to think of these bits of what was once a body being carefully recovered from a warship wrecked more than a century ago and buried, with (I’m sure) lots of pomp and circumstance, in a little plot of ground set aside for others who died fighting for the losing side, a plot whose only real significance is as a kind of historical curiosity.
“He died honorably, fighting for a cause he believed in.” You hear this kind of stuff about Our Confederate Heritage all the time. I have a friend who invokes the Nazi parallel: should Germany allow the Nazis to parade on Hitler’s birthday, because “it’s part of their heritage”? If this was a dead Nazi, would I be getting all misty reading about his interment in a quaint Third Reich graveyard somewhere in Germany?
Well, probably not. Especially if skinheads were involved. But this little funeral, delayed by a century and a half, does seem honorable. “Yet even at the grave we make our song”—and if it’s “Dixie,” well, whoever this poor fellow was, he might have wanted it to be sung.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Hmm. I guess I’m ignorant (or just not up on my confederate lore), but what significance does rosemary have for the boys in grey?
June 27th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember…” (Hamlet)
That’s my guess, anyway.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
As annoyed as I get with the “fergit, hell!” crowd, it gives me a good feeling to know that this mother’s son will have a decent burial. It seems so foreign to our CSI-world that we’ll never know who he was.
Del, another beautiful post. I sure hope you’re going to stick around here.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Yes. There’s some in the memorial garden at our church, too.
I’ve never heard of this practice before, but it’s a lovely idea. (Like wearing a white rose on Mother’s Day if your mother is dead, and a red one if she is still living. The only place I’ve ever lived where they did that was in Virginia.)
June 27th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Aw, gee, Kathy. Thanks.
June 27th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
You’re welcome. And cool emoticon!
June 27th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Del,
We did the white rose/red rose tradition in Oklahoma, too.