I Broke a Code Tuesday

Bear with me as I explain this. Ever since I got the list of Monroe UCV members, I’ve been furiously researching them. Not just the founding members. All of them. Too much to go into at the moment. Lets just say, I have a list of about 160 names I am researching. Anyway, looking back at the book we have on who got the Southern Cross of Honor in Monroe, which I’m using in my research, I found this list again, which I have shared before (See the “Confederate Soldiers Buried in Three Cemeteries” post):

I think it was compiled by the Daughters of the Confederacy over a hundred fifteen years ago. For years, researchers have wondered what those numbers after some of the names mean. Is it the key to a plot map? Many have tried to figure it out over the years and all have failed. All of us have just thrown our hands up and said, “Oh well. Must be lost to time.” In my research on the U.C.V., late Tuesday afternoon, I found an article in the News Star, August 4, 1910, Page 5 which includes a letter from W.A. O’Kelly, Adjutant of the Henry W. Allen Camp. He was detailing all the camp accomplishments, such as the monument. Then I saw this, “There has also been placed at the grave of each Confederate soldier (whose grave was not marked by a stone) a suitable marker, or marble slab numbered and a record of the number made and placed opposite the names of the soldier on the record. A copy of this record has been furnished each cemetery in our city so that a reference to this record will show where each soldier’s grave is and in addition to this the remains of about 500 soldiers have been taken up and buried beneath the mound around the monument.” Now O’Kelly is (I think) WAY off on the number of soldiers under the monument.

Back on topic. O’Kelly said numbered slabs were put at the graves of those unmarked. Well, I know some of the above that were listed as unmarked now have markers. I started with one I knew had a marker in the above list, number 41, Dr. John Calderwood. I pulled up his Findagrave memorial and looked at the pictures of the headstone. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54828133/john-calderwood . I had to blow up the photo. Do you see what I saw in front of the marker? A small marble slab with the number 41!!! This means, if we can find these little marble markers, we can find some of the unmarked burials! I REALLY want to find Morrison and Hotchkiss, who are probably the two biggest named burial unknowns out there! I’m sure several of these little markers have been buried or lost over the years, but right now the possibilities are exciting! I’m not getting out in this heat, but when it cools off a bit, I’ll be on the hunt! WOW!