"There will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation."
Abraham Lincoln, 1863
They fought for $7 a month; $10 from which $3 was deducted monthly for clothing. White soldiers were paid $13, with no deductions. They were all volunteers; blacks were not subject to the draft. Though they served in segregated units the officers were all white. If captured by Confederates they faced near certain death.
Yet 180,000 men served as United States Colored Troops during the Civil War, about 10% of the total Union troops. They won the war, won their freedom, and changed the face of America forever.
Unfortunately America did not keep its promises to these black heroes. By 1877 it had abandoned its commitments and the century long nightmare of Jim Crow discrimination had begun. Separate but equal was equal in the eyes of the law, no matter how unequal the reality was.
Many older cemeteries have a Civil War section, frequently honored by a GAR monument, with neat white rows of well tended tombstones and little American flags flapping in the breeze. Here in these Veterans plots, of all places, you would expect these warriors to be treated with equal honor.
But you would be wrong...
I live close to Allegheny Cemetery, the oldest incorporated cemetery in the city of Pittsburgh. A large cemetery in the city is like an urban oasis, a peaceful green space not populated only by the dead but also filled with life. A place where you might see a family of deer at rest, a pond filled with ducks, baby raccoons under the watchful eye of their mother.
One of my favorite places in the cemetery is the Civil War section.
Besides the large monument there is the typical burial plot, GAR monument and all.
And row upon row of impeccably maintained graves.
However, as in a great many cemeteries from this era, the graves are segregated. White soldiers in one plot, colored troopers in another. This is their final resting place in Allegheny Cemetery.
It's about 10 yards from the edge of the main plot, the distance of a first down in football, cut off by a thin asphalt road.
At first glance it doesn't look so bad. The cemetery does a good job with the herculean task of maintaining the grounds, covering 300 acres with 15 miles of paved roadways and over 117,000 graves.
It not until you look closer that you realize something is wrong.
These are the graves of the colored troopers.
They are not, as they might appear at first glance, flush markers.
But toppled marble headstones in row upon row.
All worn and difficult to read; many worn down to illegibility.
In stark contrast to the graves on the other side of the thin dividing road.
Ironically, buried among the white soldiers are 5 Confederates.
Their graves even decorated by Confederate battle flags.
Men who fought to destroy the Union who lay in graves of honor.
While men who fought to save it rest in graves like this.
There are many Civil War plots like this across the nation, and a great many white soldiers lay in similarly deteriorating graves. Across town, in a similar plot, my great-great-grandfather is in a GAR plot that was in the same condition until it was restored a decade ago.
But the stark contrast here between the white and black graves is too much to be ignored.
I don't blame the modern management of the cemetery for the problem. The stones toppled long ago. I've lived in the neighborhood 30 years and they've been like this as long as I remember. Probably decades before.
In fact, because of their condition, I only recently realized that these were Civil War graves, and just whose graves they were.
These men deserve the same care and honor their as their comrades next door. Certainly, they deserve the same respect that has been afforded their foes.
Advice and suggestions are welcome. Happy Independence Day to all.
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Abraham Lincoln, 1861
6:17 PM PT: Just a quick update, a few additional facts about the plot I learned at the VA website:
"The soldiers’ lot is located in Section 33, lot 66, and consists of 303 individual interments. While most of the burials are Union Civil War soldiers, the lot also includes 15 Confederates and a small number of Spanish-American War veterans.
Soldiers were originally interred in two places within Allegheny Cemetery: the plot donated to the federal government by the cemetery association, and the “stranger’s field,” also known as the “potter’s field,” an area for the poor. It is likely that all the remains were consolidated into the soldiers’ lot in the 1870’s.
Following the Civil War, the Allegheny County Ladies Memorial Association commissioned local artist Fred Mayer to sculpt a monument for the soldier’s Lot. Erected in 1876, the 16-foot-tall limestone monument was dedicated in memory of those who died during the Civil War."
Apparently I was wrong about the # of Confederate interments; I recall reading 5 but this says there are more.