A shell from the Alabama lodged in the USS Kearsarge's sternpost during epic duel. It failed to explode and cripple the ship. You can see artifact at a Navy museum

Sinking of Alabama, Kearsarge sternpost, Capt. Ralphael Semmes (NHHC)

For about an hour on June 19, 1864, artillery crews on the USS Kearsarge and commerce raider CSS Alabama plugged away at each other, their shells flying wide or impacting just about every conceivable spot on their opponent’s vessel.

The Union warship, protected by heavy chains, had an advantage in the epic duel off Cherbourg, France -- one that was not of its own making: The Rebel ordnance was old and at times unreliable, meaning a shell might not explode.

About 30 minutes in, a shell struck the vital sternpost of the USS Kearsarge (photo of encased artifact in 1980, NHHC). It should have been game, set, match in favor of Capt. Raphael Semmes and his sailors. Instead, the round was mostly a dud, failing to explode. The fighting continued and before long, it was game, set and match for the Federals, who sent the CSS Alabama to the bottom.

Today, the shattered sternpost and the intact artillery shell are on display in the “Securing the Seas for Union Victory” exhibit at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C. Visitors currently can see the items from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

I turned to Andy Hall, an author, blogger and Civil War naval expert, to explain the importance of a ship’s sternpost, which is a component at the rear (stern).

“It generally consists of a vertical (more or less), heavy component of timber, iron, or steel. It needs to be especially strong because it is the principal structural component to which many other parts of the stern are attached,” Hall wrote in an email. “Usually, the sternpost is also the attachment point for the rudder that swings left and right to steer the ship as it moves through the water.”

Example of sternpost on CSS Jackson at National Civil War Naval Museum (Picket photo)

"Damage to the sternpost is especially serious, because it is one of the critical elements that gives strength to the hull of the vessel.”

While the speedy Alabama’s shot on the Kearsarge sternpost did impede operations, the crew was able to steer with extra hands at the helm, according to an Encyclopedia of Alabama article.

Hall says if the shell had exploded, it likely would have ended the battle immediately and quite possibly led to the sinking of the Kearsarge, which was commanded by Capt. John Winslow. He theorizes the ordnance hit the Kearsarge around its waterline.

The red box at left shows the location of the Kearsarge's sternpost; click to enlarge

Semmes wrote in his memoir of his bad luck with the 56-pound shell’s percussion cap.

"I lodged a rifled percussion shell near her stern post – where there were no chains -- which failed to explode because of the defect of the cap. If the cap had performed its duty, and exploded the shell, I should have been called upon to save Captain Winslow’s crew from drowning, instead of his being called upon to save mine. On so slight an incident the defect of a percussion cap did the battle hinge.”

Semmes crowed that the sternpost was the only Alabama trophy taken. While that may have been true in 1864, the Naval History and Heritage Command and a team of experts recovered artifacts – including the Alabama’s bell -- from the site in 2002.

Hall, writer of the Dead Confederates blog and author of "Civil War Blockade Running on the Texas Coast," summarized the importance of the duel last year when Case Auctions sold items pertaining to Winslow and the Kearsarge. Among the items sold was a picture frame made from pieces of the sternpost (right, Case Auctions)

“It’s hard for most Americans to appreciate now how momentous this battle was viewed at the time,” Hall told the Picket. “Alabama had roamed the globe unmolested for almost two years, destroying American merchant shipping at will. Dozens of civilian ships were seized or destroyed by Capt. Semmes, causing insurance rates to skyrocket and wreaking financial havoc on ships and ports never within a thousand miles of the Confederate raider.”

While a formidable captain, Winslow thanked “the mercy of God” for his vessel’s fortune.

Legend held that the post was sent upon request to President Abraham Lincoln, but Grant Walker, a curator for the U.S. Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Md., said he has been unable to find any mention of Lincoln associated with the sternpost.

“The earliest correspondence we have concerns its transfer in 1924 from the Bureau of Ordnance Museum to the Naval Academy Museum,” says Walker. “It was part of a large transfer of ordnance from Washington to Annapolis that took place in July 1924. I could find no records re: how, when, and from whom the Bureau of Ordnance acquired it.”

One of the documents relating to the sternpost lists it as being among "trophies" kept at the Washington Navy Yard.

Various documents listing Kearsarge sternpost; click to enlarge (U.S. Naval Academy Museum)

Tracie Logan, senior curator at the USNA Museum, said the sternpost has been on loan from the academy to the National Museum of the U.S. Navy for decades.

The National Museum is undergoing an extensive renovation and movement of artifacts, so while the sternpost is still on display and the “Securing the Seas” exhibit exists, access to Building 76 is limited to Saturdays only.

Most of the objects from Alabama that were considered underwater archaeological recovery pieces have been removed from display, says Wesley Schwenk, registrar for the museum in Washington. They are retained in storage for preservation purposes. 

Capt. John Winslow, front right, with Kearsarge crew

Schwenk is involved with an exciting acquisition pertaining to orderly Sgt. Charles T. Young, a Marine who served on two other vessels and the Kearsarge during the Civil War. A native of Massachusetts, Young spent 16 years at sea before being assigned to the Kearsarge.

“Described by his fellow sailors as a garrulous sailor, he kept the crew entertained with his humorous and fantastical tales of past voyages when all other forms of amusement no longer brought pleasure to the rest of the crew,” says Schwenk. “Upon the ship's famed meeting with CSS Alabama at the Battle of Cherbourg on 19 June 1864, he and other Marines of the crew provided cover and assault fire from the ship’s topgallant forecastle.”

For his bravery and protection of his fellow crew members, the Marine Corps commended Young, says the registrar. (Seventeen members of the crew received the Medal of Honor for their valor during the battle with Alabama.) Young was in his mid-50s, an old man by the standard of the armed forces.

Schwenk says the museum received two diaries, not yet transcribed, a cudgel (it is unknown whether Young actually carried it aboard), discharge papers, a service record, letters and a muster roll. There is no known photograph of Young.

Broadside, with detail below, includes Young's name at top right, click to enlarge (George Costopulos Auctioneers)

A 2014 auction of items that belonged to Kearsarge Pvt. John J. McAleer included a fascinating hand-inscribed and decorated broadside listing the officers and crew of the famous warship. Young is listed among three Marine guards.

A Boston Journal newspaper article posted on Findagrave.com indicates Young died in 1872, age 62, in Portsmouth, N.H. He is reportedly buried at Walnut Street Cemetery in Brookline, near his native Boston. I asked Lisa Golden with the city for a photograph of his grave, but she has been unsuccessful thus far in locating it or obtaining more information about Young.

Gettysburg's famous Little Round Top reopens after two-year rehabilitation project. This comes just in time for 161st anniversary events

Park and other officials cut the ribbon at the landmark (NPS photo)

Little Round Top, the legendary hill where Union forces fought off a furious Confederate assault on July 2, 1863, during the Battle of Gettysburg, reopened Monday afternoon after a two-year rehabilitation project that addressed problems associated with large crowds.

The news was met with enthusiasm from park fans and visitors who have been unable to hike or take a bus up to the popular site since July 2022. Park spokesman Jason Martz said Tuesday the feedback has been positive thus far.

“We know everyone has been anxious to get back to the summit, but your continued patience will still be required," Gettysburg National Military Park said on social media after the opening. "We fully anticipate the area will be very heavily visited so please work with our on-site staff. They will be strategically posted throughout the area to help get you acclimated."

The park cited erosion, overwhelmed parking areas, poor accessibility and related safety hazards, and degraded vegetation before the area was closed.

Visitors take in one of the Little Round Top markers near the summit (NPS photo)

A ceremonial ribbon-cutting was held Monday morning ahead of the reopening. The conclusion of the work comes about a week before 161^st anniversary programming.

Little Round Top traditionally is the top destination for park visitors, followed by the visitor center and museum and Devil's Den, which reopened in September 2022 after a rehabilitation effort.

“The (Little Round Top) project enhances access to a more extensive, safe, and accessible trail system that allows visitors to experience the area's monuments, cannons, and other areas of interest,” the park in southern Pennsylvania said in a news release.

“Gathering areas across the summit will better accommodate the many large groups arriving by bus. Eroded soils have been stabilized and re-vegetated. New interpretive waysides throughout the area tell the story of those who suffered, died, and memorialized the battlefield. In addition, satellite parking has been expanded and formalized in the area with access to the trail system.”

The project included significant work around monuments and trails (NPS)

Some 164 feet above the Plum Run Valley to the west, the hill became the anchor of the Union’s left flank and a focal point of Confederate attacks. The 4^th,15^{th and 47th} Alabama regiments made a series of legendary assaults against the 20^th Maine.

“The (Maine) regiment’s sudden, desperate bayonet charge blunted the Confederate assault on Little Round Top and has been credited with saving Major General George Gordon Meade’s Army of the Potomac, winning the Battle of Gettysburg and setting the South on a long, irreversible path to defeat,” according to the American Battlefield Trust.

The regiment was led by Joshua Chamberlain, and its heroics has been remembered in film and folklore.

David Duncan, president of the American Battlefield Trust, a partner in the Little Round Top project, said in a statement:

“Gettysburg veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Joshua Chamberlain (right) noted that ‘In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays’ and there are few landscapes for which that power of place is more tangible than Little Round Top. “Now revitalized and enhanced, it stands ready to welcome this and future generations, a place where they can feel a meaningful connection to the past.”

Superintendent Kris Heister told the Picket in March improvements at Little Round Top and Devil’s Den have provided “a high-quality visitor experience and resource protection to ensure those resources are available to future generations in good condition.”

At Little Round Top, she said, traffic circulation patterns have been improved and individuals with mobility issues (whether considered handicapped or not) will now be able to visit the hill.

Breastworks have been rehabilitated, new wayside exhibits were installed, some social trails removed and others have been formalized, providing access to areas of the hill and monuments that haven't been accessible in years.

Designated bus parking has been added and gathering spaces have been formalized to reduce off-trail use and facilitate the many groups that visit, Heister said.

The cost of the Little Round Top project was $12.9 million, of which $5.2 million came from donations from the Gettysburg Foundation, National Park Foundation and the American Battlefield Trust.

Officials ask visitors to park on Sedgwick or South Confederate avenues and take one of the new trailheads to the summit. The park has provided this FAQ about parking. There are changes.

This Black regiment fought at Fort Fisher and protected Washington, D.C. A new sign at a fort in Arlington will remember the 107th UCT's campaign for equality

107th USCT troops at Fort Corcoran in Northern Virginia (Library of Congress)
and John McNair of Arlington parks and Drew Gruber of Civil War Trails with sign at Fort Ethan Allen

National Park Service ranger Steve T. Phan likes to refer to the 68 enclosed fortifications that defended Washington, D.C., during the Civil War as “Freedom’s Forts.”

Thousands of enslaved people attempted to self-emancipate at U.S.  Army lines around the capital and the forts and Union soldiers were often their first contact.

“African-Americans labored in army camps and at the forts, and perhaps fitting, were later stationed in the defenses as USCT soldiers,” Phan told the Picket. “The soldiers not only helped secure the capital, they participated in the destruction of slavery and the restoration of the Union.”

Phan, chief of interpretation at Camp Nelson National Monument in Kentucky, served from 2017-2021 with the NPS’ unit telling the story of the Civil War Defenses of Washington. His expertise was called upon for a new marker remembering the service of a USCT regiment at Fort Ethan Allen, now a park in Arlington, Va.

Arlington’s parks and recreation team and community leaders on Thursday morning – a day after Juneteenth -- will unveil a Civil War Trails sign at the park remembering the 107th U.S. Colored Troops, one of at least three African-American regiments that helped man the 68 forts.

The regiment, which was organized in Louisville, Ky., in spring 1864, took part in fighting in North Carolina, including the assault on Fort Fisher. It later sent two companies (C and H), about 200 men, to Fort Ethan Allen, one of the strongest and heavily armed of the DC sites, in October 1865, while other troops were stationed nearby

They drilled and manned Fort Ethan Allen’s ramparts in case trouble ever began. While the war had been over in the region for several months, Phan said the Army kept about 20 forts open into 1866. “A lot of the USCT had to fulfill their three years of service,” having enlisted in 1863 and 1864. (At left, Sgt. Maj. Charles Singer of Company A, 10th USCT, NPS photo)

“Congress did not want to pay for the maintenance and garrisoning. The chief engineer made the point, ‘Remember where we were at in 1861, when there was no defense of the capital, and we had to rush to build these forts,’” says Phan.

The forts were such a powerful deterrent against the Confederacy that just a few saw action, and only for a couple days in July 1864. Rebel units nearing the capital put the city into panic, but their foray ended when they were rebuffed at Fort Stevens in Maryland.

Fort Ethan Allen, near Key Bridge, was not among the outposts that opened artillery fire on Confederates approaching Fort Stevens.

Earthwork remnants in nearby 19-acre Fort C.F. Smith Park are considered the best preserved of the 22 Arlington-area forts. While most traces are gone, the ruins of the lunette fort include a bomb proof, the fort well, the north magazine and 11 of the 22 gun emplacements.

The forts on the Arlington Line, plus Ethan Allen, were built to complement each other. “One fort doesn’t need to protect everything. It can rely on other forts,” said John McNair, historian for Fort C.F. Smith Park. McNair led the two-effort to put the new marker at Fort Ethan Allen Park.

Fort Ethan Allen (top left) and other Civil War forts near the Potomac (Library of Congress)

That’s why most of the guns in the lunette at C.F. Smith are trained to the northwest, to cover the gap between it and Ethan Allen, instead of to the south, where Confederates attackers would likely emerge. Fort Strong took care of that sector, McNair told the Picket in 2018.

By autumn 1865, the defeated Confederate army was gone. But that did not mean the 107^th USCT companies at Fort Ethan Allen relaxed.

They protected government property and ordnance that was to be sold to pay off the war debt.

Many white Virginians, ardent secessionists and pro-slavery citizens in Maryland were likely hostile to the troops, said Phan (right).

For the soldiers in the 107^th – along with the 4^th USCT and 28^th USCT – deployment in and around Washington must have been especially poignant.

“The majority of these men are enslaved and they are going to end their war service in the view of the Capitol. That is pretty incredible,” said Phan.

Black troops were fighting for the rights of citizenship after many had freed themselves by leaving the South. “They want to be able to move, to purchase property, to marry who they want. They want to vote.”

Seven months before war’s end, Sgt. Maj. Charles Singer of the 107^th wrote a letter published in The Christian Monitor about his motivation. Singer was born free, a rarity among USCT soldiers.

Pvt. Creed Miller, a former slave, fought with Company E of the 107th UST.
He died of disease in 1866 (National Museum of African American History and Culture)

“I wish for nothing but to breathe … the air of liberty…. I have no ambition, unless it to be to break the chain and exclaim: ‘Freedom to all!” Singer wrote. “I never will be satisfied so long as the meanest slave in the South has a link of chain clinging to his leg.”

Phan emphasized that freedom doesn’t ensure equality.

About 23,000 Black troops enlisted in Kentucky and those who returned to the state after the Civil War endured stiff discrimination and the codification of Jim Crow laws. Kentucky, a Southern border state during the conflict, did not officially ratify the 13^th Amendment – which abolished slavery – until 1876.

Remaining earthworks at Fort Ethan Allen Park (Farragutful, Wikipedia)

USCT veterans formed communities across the state while others joined the Army and became the first Buffalo Soldiers, serving for another 20 years.

“It is a practical way to take care of themselves and their families,” said Phan.

Others moved to Ohio or other Midwestern states. About 5,000 Kentuckians went to Kansas, many joining the Black colony in Nicodemus in the 1870s.

In a news release about the sign, Rita McClenny, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Corporation, said the park offers travelers an opportunity to stand in the footsteps of warriors.

Plan for Fort Ethan Allen in Virginia, near Key Bridge (Library of Congress)

"These men did not sit idly by as the war progressed and this new sign commemorates those who fearlessly fought for emancipation and equality,” she said.

NPS ranger Bryan Cheeseboro, an expert on the African-American troops in the war and a speaker at the event, has said USCT troops were stationed at Fort Runyon. At least 20 members of the 45th USCT are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, he said.

The Picket has reached out to Arlington County’s John McNair for comment.

The Civil War Trails sign unveiling will take place at 9:30 a.m. Thursday at Fort Ethan Allen Park, 3829 N. Stafford St., Arlington, Va. Call 703-228-1865 for more information on the unveiling.

Until these Civil War Enfield rifles are conserved, they will stay in an aquarium tank at a Georgia state park. Here's how specialists gently clean the exhibit

DNR team removes water and gently cleans Enfield rifles (Danielle Grau/Sweetwater Creek State Park)

Items you might find in a garage or utility shed turn out to be handy tools when protecting precious artifacts that help tell the story of the Civil War.

A team with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources this week used a garden hose, small pump, spray nozzle and a wet-dry vacuum to clean and refill a 300-gallon aquarium tank that holds -- of all things -- 18 Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles.

Josh Headlee, curator and historic preservation specialist with the DNR, has done the task a couple times a year since 2013. He travels to Sweetwater Creek State Park in Douglas County, Ga., west of Atlanta. (Surprised visitors to the museum there ask where the weapons were found and why they are in water, says park clerk Danielle Grau.)

The water is siphoned out of the tank to a sink (Danielle Grau)

The English-made rifles were carried by a Confederate blockade runner and lost when it hit a sandbar and sank in Charleston, S.C, in 1863. They were recovered from the wreckage of the CSS Stono in the late 1980s.

Headlee says the rare guns remain in a state of limbo as they await conservation, with the goal of exhibiting them out of water. Removing harmful corrosive salts from their time in the ocean and using fresh-cycled water in the tank keep them stable.

Unfortunately, the iron rifle barrels, locks and bayonets are heavily deteriorated or gone. A tin and lead lining that sealed the cargo from salt air and ensured the rifles were not tampered with likewise is in bad condition. The trigger guards, butt plates and nose caps at the end of the barrels are made brass and still intact.

Matt Sanford, Josh Snead and Josh Headlee clean interior (Danielle Grau)

We asked Headlee to describe the cleaning of the tank. This week, he worked with DNR archaeologist Matt Sanford and Josh Snead, a field interpreter for Georgia State Parks. All the photos were taken by Grau.

WHY THEY CLEAN THEM: The staff at Sweetwater keeps Headlee up on the condition and clarity of the tank, and he cleans it about twice a year. The main purpose is to remove algae, sediment or muck that could further harm the rifles, metal lining and the exterior crate. Headlee makes sure the aquarium pump and filter are working property. “The most important thing is to keep the water moving.”

PUMP IT UP AND OUT: The team uses a garden hose and transfer pump to draw the water out before the gentle cleaning. “There are no high-tech gadgets we are using,” says Headlee. “How do we get the water out, how do we get the water back in.” The removal takes about an hour.

Brass rifle butts after draining, the weapons during refilling (Danielle Grau)

NEXT STEP: The team used a sprayer and wet-dry vacuum to remove any debris; no cleaning agents are used. We use a “light spray to get any type of algae off.” They don’t scrub the rifles or the other contents, but do use soft-bristle brushes and towels on the glass. Over the years, they find less debris. Early on, Headlee used a colander to sift wood and metal for examination back at the lab. He notes that the malleable tin lining will pose the biggest conservation challenge. “I am not sure what we will be able to do.”

THE GREAT REFILL: After lunch, the team removed any remaining debris and begins filling the tank after brushing the sides. They turned the water off a few times in the filling process to make sure the filter pump was going to work properly and not leak. A fungicide was added. The water refilling took close to 1.5 hours.

Josh Headlee takes a close look during the tank refilling (Danielle Grau)

FINIS! The work is done by late afternoon and the visibility is markedly improved, to the benefit of the rifles and visitors. Headlee says it is even better the following day because of settling and the dissolving of the fungicide.

Getting the artifacts out of water and through conservation will save maintenance, time and effort, says Headlee. Two rifles were removed from the tank in 2022 to test a wood preservative. They are being held in fresh water at another state facility.

There’s no timetable for the conservation work, with other projects at the front of the line. Still, he is hopeful.

“They are not forgotten by any means,” he said.

William Johnson was born enslaved, died a Civil War veteran. A Jacksonville consortium will revitalize a campus cemetery and restore his headstone amid larger effort to honor area USCT soldiers

New headstone, exterior of cemetery and old marker before it was stolen (Jacksonville University)'
Sketch of Black soldiers in Florida (State Library and Archives of Florida)

Perhaps they rest under a live oak or Sabal palm in an overgrown and forgotten plot, tucked away in what is now forest. A few may be beneath unmarked graves along a busy thoroughfare.

Regardless of the setting, a nonprofit in Jacksonville, Fla., is attempting to track down the graves of African-American soldiers – many of them formerly enslaved -- who served in a United States Colored Troops regiment during the Civil War.

The idea is to place government-approved headstones marking their service to country and, when possible, to rehabilitate abandoned USCT gravesites, “bringing these soldiers and their descendants the redemption they have so deserved.”

That initiative got some attention recently after Jacksonville University and the nonprofit, Local Initiatives Support Coalition (LISC) Jacksonville, announced plans to improve a fenced cemetery on campus that holds the remains of Cpl. William Johnson, Company F, 33^rd USCT.  A new VA-approved headstone, expected to be erected by Veterans Day, will replace one stolen after a university staffer rediscovered the neglected cemetery in the late 1980s.

In a larger effort, LISC Jacksonville, in partnership with the Digital Humanities Institute at the University of North Florida, will use pension and other records to apply for grave markers for other USCT members in the area. (At right, soldiers believed to the be in the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later the 33rd USCT)

“After the Civil War, Black veterans and their families fought a completely different battle; however, this one was a true logomachy, a war of words,” says the introduction to a UNF page about the pensioners. “From pleading with Army officials that they were who they said they were to widows who wouldn’t quit, these pension records tell the stories of resilience in the face of institutionalized discrimination and racism.”

Jacksonville University emeritus professor of history Craig Buettinger notified LISC about the unmarked Johnson grave in 2022 when the organization launched its Operation Final Hours initiative. The aim is to help Duval County families receive and install headstones from the Department of Veteran Affairs for an unmarked burial site. About 25 families have been helped thus far, LISC says.

Kristopher Smith, community development program officer at LISC Jacksonville, told the Civil War Picket in an email there could be other African-American soldiers buried in the former Chaseville Cemetery, which predates Jacksonville University. Buettinger said “fragments suggest another USCT veteran.”

Smith (left) said in the coming weeks, LISC will try to track down the locations of other members of  Johnson’s Company F of the 33^rd USCT.

“I won't have a total number until after we complete our preliminary review in mid-June,” Smith said.

James Beasley, director of the UNF institute, told the Picket he is honored to help preserve the memory of the USCT pensioners and help students “engage in research that impacts the community. Students were able to take the skills that we teach in our classes and have it affect social change.”

From enslavement to serving the United States

Buettinger said Cpl. Johnson's “life is also mostly hidden from us, especially before his enlistment.”  

The soldier was likely born enslaved in Duval County and was believed to be a field hand. He traveled to the Union lines at Fernandina, enlisting at Fort Clinch with one of the first Black regiments to be raised after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. (Confederate and Union forces battled over Jacksonville throughout the war.)

The 1st South Carolina before it became the 33rd USCT (Library of Congress)

Johnson was believed to be about 21 when he and two friends enlisted with the 1^st South Carolina Colored Infantry in January 1863.

The 33^rd USCT was later formed from the 1^st South Carolina, according to the National Park Service. It served in South Carolina and took part in several expeditions. The regiment was in occupied Charleston at war’s end and was stationed there several months.

Pension records (below) show Johnson was shot in the hand and chest by a bushwhacker in October 1865, leaving him partially disabled. He was discharged the following year.

William Johnson's pension request details wounding (click to enlarge)

Johnson later lived in the Arlington neighborhood of Jacksonville and attended a church that was once located on Jacksonville University land. He married Fanny Jackson, who survived him by more than a decade after his 1892 passing. He was believed to be 51 when he died, Buettinger says.

“Because of his wounds, he could only do light gardening and he said he could only earn half of what an able-bodied worker earned,” said the professor.

Johnson has no living survivors. The exact location of his grave in the cemetery is not known.

Now is the time to replace a stone headstone

Established in 1934, Jacksonville University has five colleges, 11 schools and four institutes. Its 235-acre riverfront campus is “minutes from downtown and from beautiful area beaches.”

Dr. Craig Buettinger provides details about cemetery (Jacksonville University)

The last known burial at what was called Chaseville Cemetery was in about 1932. The burial ground served two African-American churches in Chaseville, a largely Black community on the northern end of Arlington. It’s possible Black Jacksonville police officers are interred there as well.

By 1962, the cemetery had fallen into neglect. There are no records, so officials don’t know how many graves are on the site and few, if any, remain marked.

“When it was rediscovered by JU staff member Jim Golden in 1989, only Johnson’s marble veteran’s headstone remained. Golden, himself a veteran, cleared up the grounds and held a ceremony for Johnson. Regrettably, that military headstone was later stolen,” Buettinger wrote in a summary about Johnson and the cemetery.

Buettinger and Ray Oldakowski, professor of geography, led the university effort to replace the headstone.

Artifacts recovered from the cemetery parcel (Jacksonville University)

The wooded site is on the edge of the campus, east of the Jacksonville University warehouse, near the Green Street gate, along University Boulevard. The cemetery is maintained by Jacksonville University.

Smith, with LISC Jacksonville, said it is too early to place cost estimates on the cemetery revitalization and the organization is working on funding sources.

The Haskell Company, which does design, engineering and construction work, is providing pro bono help to LISC and Jacksonville University through design and scoping documents. A company spokesman told the Picket it’s possible Haskell will eventually become involved in contracted work.

“Haskell will continue its pro bono work leading up to Nov 2024 when we anticipate having funding commitments and (a) final design in place for the cemetery,” said Smith. (At left, the current rendering for the overhaul of the campus cemetery, courtesy Jacksonville University)

JU President Tim Cost says the school is committed to honoring veterans. “It’s not only important to us, but especially to the Arlington community, to honor those who occupied this beautiful piece of land before us.”

Beasley, of UNF, said, “It’s been extremely inspiring to see how looking for information and conducting research has led to the physical manifestation of the headstone being created. No matter how small what you’re doing in the classroom is, it might have a large effect in the community,” Beasley added.

Buettinger believes the community and university have an opportunity to honor those buried on the campus.

“We must make sure that this cemetery is not again forgotten,” he said.

Hands-on learning: These artifacts may not be eligible for the museum, but they still have a lot to teach Kennesaw Mountain park visitors about the Civil War

Several items from the federal park's education collection (KMNBP)

If an item is under glass at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park’s museum and visitor center, you can be sure provenance has been proven and it has a firm connection to the June 1864 fighting there or the Atlanta Campaign.

Many artifacts found on trails or donated to the park don’t meet that standard. But that’s OK – they can still educate visitors during interpretive programs and field trips.

I asked Jake Boling, a Kennesaw Mountain park ranger and education coordinator, for a little more detail after a  #MuseumMonday social media post about the education collection.

Boling stressed a museum-level item needs to have historic context, including a specific location and chain of custody.

“A good example of this is when a visitor brings in a box full of Minie balls that they found in their basement, which could be from any Civil War site,” Boling said in an email. “We would not be interested in the Minie balls for our museum collection, but they could be a useful educational tool.”

Unlike items at the museum, artifacts in the education collection can often be touched and held by visitors.

The North Georgia park posted a photograph (above) with many items of that type: three pocket Bibles, shell fragments on either side of a 12-pound solid shot, and at bottom, an Enfield round, musket ball and a Minie ball round.  (While all of the artifacts in the photo are original, some used for interpretation are reproductions.)

The Bibles are examples of those commonly carried by soldiers in the field, wrote Boling.

The shell fragments come various types of explosive artillery rounds. The solid cannon ball would have been used with a 12 pound, smoothbore Napoleon cannon. The Enfield round would have been used in Enfield rifles, whereas the Mine ball would have most likely been used in a Springfield model rifled musket, he said. The round ball could have been used in a number of different smoothbore muskets. 

Artifacts in the education collection are shown in a variety of programs. Sometimes, they are taken off-site.

“Broadly, these items help our interpretive audience actually feel and hold (in some cases) a piece of history. While we may not have the specifics on the when and where of these items, being able to feel the weight of a cannonball or the sharp edges of an artillery shell can facilitate a connection with the resources here,” said Boling. 

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is putting on 160^th anniversary programming this month. Events include hikes, music and infantry, artillery and signal corps demonstrations.