Alexandria's Veterans #5

Decoration Day,   Part I I

With the houses clean and the farms tended, the young ladies put on their finest white dresses to perform one last task before summer officially began.

There are a series of pictures showing the ladies of Alexandria dressed in white for Decoration Day.  Today, we call this Memorial Day.  Back then, Decoration Day was the day to recognize the fallen soldiers of the community by decorating houses with bunting, much as we celebrate the Fourth of July today.  Decoration Day used to be a big event and was reserved solely for honoring those who died in the service of their beloved country.  It was a day the young women decorated the graves of veterans by placing flowers on the graves of the fallen.  The observance of Decoration Day started shortly after the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln - a singular event with profound effect on our community.

Decoration Day was first celebrated in Alexandria on Monday, May 31, 1869, and this Decoration Day specifically honored our losses in the Civil War.  At 4 PM, the local citizenry gathered at the Maple Grove Cemetery and Captain Joseph M. Scott called the observance to order.  A hymn was sung, a prayer given, and a poem read.  Reverend (Captain) Simeon Siegfried, Jr., of the Alexandria Baptist Church addressed the crowd.  This was followed by another hymn, set to the song "Children of the Heavenly King" with the words from "Strew the Blossoms."  Children of the Heavenly King is Pleyel's Hymn and became popular after it was sung at Abraham Lincoln's funeral.

At this point, the crowd processed from one veteran's grave to another as the ladies decorated each grave by placing flowers and short remarks were made at each by either Captain Scott, Reverend Siegfried, or Newton Parker.  The following graves of soldiers who died in the American Civil War were honored in this order,

- Corporal Henry Rose, Company B, 76th OVI - died February 15, 1863, Milliken Bend, Madison Parish, Louisiana (Killed by lightning with Sergeant Rufus Buxton)

- Captain Ira P. French, Company B, 76th OVI - died November 27, 1863, [Battle of Ringgold Gap,] Georgia

- Sergeant Rufus Buxton, Company B, 76th OVI - died February 15, 1863, Milliken Bend, Madison Parish, Louisiana.  (Killed by lightning with Corporal Henry Rose)

- Private Dwight Follet, Company D, 22nd OVI - died January 3, 1862, St. Louis, Missouri

- Private Joseph Lyman, Company B, 76th OVI    

- Private John I Quincey Merrill, Company B, 76th OVI - died October 6, 1863

- Private Samuel Jones, Company F, 135th OVI - died October 10, 1864, Georgia

- Henry Vail, [Rank and Service Record Currently Unknown.  There are at least two Henry Vails in the records of the Regiments of the Ohio Infantry]

- Private Reuben Sinnett, Co D, 22nd OVI - died January 20, 1862, Missouri

- [Rank Unkown] Benjamin Strothers, Company A, 22nd OVI    

- Private Jasper Monroe (Munroe), Company B, 76th OVI - died July 29, 1862

- [Rank Unknown] Arthur Wamsbrough, Company H, 5th OVI

- Private Edelbert H. Cooley, Company H, 76th OVI - died September 2, 1862

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The term OVI refers to Ohio Veteran Infantry.  Once the unit was mustered out, the veterans retained their unit identity more as a social organization.  Today we might call it the National Guard.   The number refers to the regimental number.

The crowd returned to the stand and sang "O not in vain ye call us forth."  A list of those fallen soldiers from surrounding cemeteries was read and the service concluded by singing "Blest are the martyred dead" to the tune recognized today as the Doxology (Old Hundredth).

All those young ladies in white...  yet, if you allow me some literary leeway, there was one in particular who wore black.  Emily was young lady of the community.  Her ancestors were some of the very earliest in the Granville and Alexandria farmlands and businesses.  Her father ran a successful store in Alexandria.  Then the Civil War came.  Emily lost her brother Henry when lightning struck the tent he was sheltered in.  At her father's store was a young clerk learning to be a druggist, Ira French of Johnstown, who had taken a room with her father during his clerkship.  Before leaving for Camp Sherman, Ira and Emily were married.  Captain Ira French lost his life at the Battle of Ringgold Gap.

For additional information on the deaths of Rufus Buxton and Henry Rose, please read,

http://www.miltonhistoricalsociety.org/.../Prechtel... "The Lightning Brothers"