The Civil War Era
The Civil War Era The formation of the Confederate States of America, the outbreak of the Civil War, and the increasing hostilities between opposing sides led to steadily growing tensions in Lexington. Men enlisted in the Union army, which was recruiting in the Bluegrass, and others slipped off to join the Southern forces in Tennessee and the western part of Kentucky. City residents became increasingly divided, and remained divided so long as the conflict lasted. The cemetery board, realizing that there would be many more casualties, set aside a part of Section N as the "Soldiers' Ground," and on December 2 David Leech (or Leach) of the 14th Ohio was the first man buried there. The four men of Bramlette's regiment and two of the Ohioans were moved there, while the other two were sent to their home state. During most of the Civil War the fairgrounds (now part of the main campus of the University of Kentucky) was a federal encampment. The grounds contained a handsome amphitheater which had been erected by John McMurtry, the architect-builder who had designed the original cemetery gateway. Just before midnight on December 18, 1861, the amphitheater caught fire, an alarm was sounded, and citizens thronged to the scene. "Whilst the fire progressed," the Observer & Reporter recounted in its next issue, "an occurrence took place...that caused a far deeper feeling of melancholy than the destruction of the amphitheater." A Union cavalry officer, Lieutenant Joel D. Hickman, wearing his uniform, entered the campground and was challenged by a sentry. Probably in jest, Hickman declared "himself to be a Secessionist" and repeated the statement, whereupon the sentry shot him dead. The body of the lieutenant, who was well known in Lexington, was placed with military honors in the vault at the cemetery on December 20 and later was interred. Through some unexplained circumstance, the location of the grave was not recorded, and to this day it is not known. When Confederate forces invaded Kentucky in the late summer of 1862, troops under General E. Kirby Smith entered Lexington on September 2, followed two days later by Colonel John Hunt Morgan's cavalry. They took over the Union military hospitals, and deaths of the sick and wounded occurred almost daily. The cemetery trustees set aside a plot in section P for the burial of Confederate soldiers, and the first to be interred there was Thomas W. Ward of the 30th Arkansas, on September 5. He was not, however, the first Southern casualty laid to rest in the Lexington Cemetery. The Confederate occupation ended October 9 after the Battle of Perryville, and Union troopsheld Lexington until the end of the war. Aside from occasional skirmishes, little fighting took place around Lexington, and many, perhaps most, of the men buried in the cemetery died of illness in the military hospitals or in private homes where they were being cared for. A note pasted in the front of the interments book states that between October 4, 1861, and July 26, 1865, there were buried in the Lexington Cemetery 828 "U.S. vols white," 40 "U.S. Vols cold," and 97 "Disloyal," a total of 965 Union dead. In the Confederate and private lots there were 102 Southern burials during the war, and 88 of those men had died in hospitals here. After the war the cemetery company donated the Union lot to the United States government, which purchased an adjoining 16,111 square feet on July 1, 1867. The whole area was designated a national cemetery, and the bodies of federal soldiers from several central Kentucky counties were brought here. Servicemen and veterans of later wars were interred in this tract, and by 1932 it was filled. When the government decided not to buy additional land, the trustees set aside an adjacent lot containing 102 grave spaces which could be purchased for the burial of eligible men and women. The Southern section was turned over to the Confederate Veterans Association on June 6, 1891, for the token payment of one dollar, and the C.V.A. on February 2 of the next year bought an adjoining lot of 510 square feet for fifty dollars. When this space also became filled, the association purchased two more lots totaling 853 square feet. It was a rule of the association that no Confederate veteran would have to be buried in a pauper's grave. The Lexington National Cemetery for many years had near its center a large cannon known as "Long Tom," a relic of the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky, mounted on end. A heavy iron chain hung from stone posts along the roadway, and at intervals by the road were five bronze plaques inscribed with lines of Theodore O'Hara famous poem "The Bivouac of the Dead," which begins: The muffled drum's sad roll had beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more on life's parade shall meet The brave and daring few. On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead
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