In remembrance of my own Civil War veteran, great-great-great-grandfather Sergeant Abner C. Lay of Company A, 78th New York Infantry, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
A yellow flag denotes the otherwise unmarked grave of a Civil War veteran in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.
More than one thousand New York City Civil War veterans may forever lie in unmarked graves due to arbitrary federal rules — but now a New York senator and cemetery advocates are fighting on the veterans’ behalf.
The Department of Veterans Affairs furnishes, at no charge, a government headstone or marker for the unmarked grave of any deceased and honorably discharged veteran in any cemetery around the world, regardless of the veteran’s date of death. But the VA has blocked Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery from placing gravestones on its unmarked plots, ruling that only soldiers’ relatives could request a headstone.
As a result, 1,200 veterans of the nation’s most agonizing and bloody conflict are doomed to remain unmarked and unhonored.
“We have to reverse this injustice,” said Green-Wood historian Jeff Richman, who has a petition on marktheirgraves.org demanding the federal government return to the old rules whereby historians, veteran’s groups and other interested parties could request a marker for a long-deceased veteran’s final resting place. “These are men and women who sacrificed tremendously during the Civil War. Some of whom gave their lives, some of whom lost limbs, some of whom were disabled for the rest of their lives to serve their country.”
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has joined the campaign, reaching out to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki and asking the VA to roll back the restriction.
“All veterans deserve to have their final resting spot marked and honored with a headstone,” says Schumer.
The first Civil War casualty to be buried in Green-Wood Cemetery was a 12-year-old drummer for the 13th New York Militia. Clarence McKenzie was buried June 14, 1861, two months after the Union garrison at Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces. He was followed to the grave 12 days later by Adolph Vincens, a 23-year-old London-born jeweler killed in battle.
By the time the war ended four years later, about 200 other soldiers and sailors who died in the Civil War were buried at Green-Wood, established in 1838 in what was then a rural section of Brooklyn. In the decades after the war, thousands of others would join their comrades in the 478-acre expanse of greenery and statuary with a hilltop view of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
Richman estimates there may be up to 8,000 former Civil War soldiers buried in the city’s largest and most historic cemetery. The dedicated historian personally tracks down death certificates, obituaries, pension records and other paperwork confirming which of Green-Wood’s dead fought during the Civil War.
A team of volunteers and Green-Wood staff spent more than a decade trying to identify all those graves. Part of the project included placing granite markers at the graves of those previously unmarked.
Then in 2012 came the rule change.
“What difference does it make if you find someone five generations removed from the soldier [to make the request]? The answer is: nothing,” Richman said. “Many Civil War veterans didn’t have children. So now they can’t get a gravestone.”
Schumer said he was shocked to learn that the VA has blocked these veterans from getting the final recognition they deserve.
“To require the permission of a direct descendant of men who died well over one hundred years ago is a nonsensical policy and it must be reversed,” Schumer said.
The VA has said that the agency is aware of Schumer’s appeal and will respond later this summer. Those with any experience with government bureaucratic-speak know just what that means: don’t hold your breath.
It’s easy to overlook the veterans of the past when the needs of today’s veterans are so many and so urgent. But let’s not allow the passage of time or the arbitrary red tape of bureaucracy to deny any American veteran his or her due respect. A simple stone marker is not too much to expect in return for standing up in the line of fire for one’s country.
Please consider adding your name to the petition at www.marktheirgraves.org.