Gone for a Soldier...

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There are never any shortage of military graves...never.

These are just a few I've come across lately in my cemetery-wanderings, that "spoke" to me.

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Josiah Dickson; Virginia Militia, Revolutionary War

...in Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville, Missouri.

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There she sits on Buttermilk Hill

 Oh, who could blame her cryin' her fill

 Every tear would turn a mill 

Johnny has gone for a soldier.

 Me-oh-my she loved him so

 It broke her heart just to see him go

 Only time will heal her woe 

Johnny has gone for a soldier.

 She sold her rock and she sold her reel 

She sold her only spinning wheel 

To buy her love a sword of steel

Johnny has gone for a soldier.

She'll dye her dress, she'll dye it red

And in the streets go begging for bread 

The one she loves from her has fled 

Johnny has gone for a soldier.

(Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier/Buttermilk Hill ~ Folk Song)

My very favorite rendition of this song is by James Taylor,

with Mark O'Conner on violin (love him, too) from the PBS documentary

 "Liberty: The American Revolution". You can watch the video here.

It is excellent!

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The Confederate Memorial in West View Cemetery, Atlanta.

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"...And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people;

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more."

Isaiah 2: 3-4


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"Representing nothing on God's earth now,
And naught in the waters below it,
As the pledge of a nation that's dead and gone,
Keep it, dear friend, and show it.

Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale that this trifle can tell
Of Liberty born of a patriot's dream.
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.

(Lines on a Confederate Note by Major Sidney Alroy Jonas)

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"In the magnanimous judgement of mankind,
who gives up life under a sense of duty 
to a public caused deemed just,
is a hero."
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"Erected, through the efforts
of women of the state,
in admiration of the chivalry of men
who fought in defense of home and fireside,
and in their fall
sealed a title to unfading affection."

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"In loving memory of Captain Dickson Robert Henry
Company M 7th Regiment 3rd Division, US Army
Who fell leading his company in the battle of the Argonne near Cierges, France,
about 4:30 a.m. Oct.4, 1918.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
June 15, 1889 ~ Oct.4,1918

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"At Rest"
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The Unknown Confederate Dead monument in Historic Oakland Cemetery

in Atlanta; the "Lion of the Confederacy", or "Lion of Atlanta".

The lion, which guards a field containing the remains of unknown Confederate dead,

was commissioned by the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association and carved by T.M. Brady

in 1894 out of the largest piece of marble quarried from North Georgia up to that time.

Though Brady claimed that the designs was original (oh, my ~ Mr. Brady! "Pants on fire...")

with a few exceptions it is actually a near copy of the Swiss Lion of Lucerne.


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In Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta...

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Confederate section of Laurel Grove Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia.

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Lt. James A. Pigue in Nashville's Mount Olivet Cemetery.

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C.G. Stephens, Jr.; 1st Lieut. 20th Aero.

 Killed in action at Amanty, France, Sept. 15, 1918.

Age 23 years.

Mount Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee.

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Confederate Circle in Mount Olivet.

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"Sleep, Comrades"

In Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia.

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In memory of Captain John H. Stecin, 

founder of the German Volunteers of Savannah, Ga. 1845;

"A Faithful Soldier,

A Noble Officer,

and a Friend to All".

You can see in the detail photo at the top, the "GV", for "Georgia Volunteers",

on the belt buckle. His tomb is is Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah.

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John H. Rogers
Lieutenant 66th Regiment, Georgia Volunteers
Confederate States Army
Killed in Battle near Atlanta, Georgia, July 22, 1864.
Aged 19 years.

They really get to me when they say the age, and John was the same age as

my son Jon is now. Some mother's little boy, to her.

 Unimaginable.

In Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah.

(Notice the Southern Cross of Honor.)

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The memorial tomb ( a cenotaph) for Staff Sergeant John Snowden, Jr., 

who was killed at the Battle of the Bulge in February 1945. He is buried in a military

cemetery in Luxembourg. His cousin, Lieutanant John Bayard Snowden II, was killed

in France in 1944. He commanded the 318th Infantry Battalion of the 3rd Army.

After his death, he was buried in an American Military Cemetery in France,

and then his body was returned to Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.

The monument above honors the two cousins. It features an angel with a palm

frond in her left hand and a torch (not yet extinguished) in her right.*


(* "Elmwood ~ In the Shadows of the Elms" by Perre Magness)


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"In memory of 1st. Lieut. Clifford F.Moriarity Jr.,
8th Air Force U.S.A.
Killed in Action over Germany, World War II.

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A draped flag...

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"John W. Apperson, son of E.M. & S.B. Apperson,
Born Aug.21, 1836,
Died on the Battlefield of Shiloh,
April 7, 1862.

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Not specifically about a soldier, but another by my new Victorian-era 

favorite poet, Frank Lebby Stanton, that I think fits.


"Fellow Who had Done His Best"

Fellow who had done his best
Went one morning to his rest;
Never lips his forehead pressed
Not one rose on his still breast.

But the angels knew that day
How along the rocky way
He had traveled for that rest
Fellow who had done his best!

No one, as he trudged along,
Knew the sigh - was in the song;
No one heard his poor heart beat
Where the sharp thorns pierced his feet.

But that day, the day he died
There were angels at his side,
Angels singing him to rest
Fellow who had done his best.

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Thank you for reading!
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