Searching For Our Civil War Veterans

By Jeffrey I. Richman · Originally published April 2017 · p. 18

I am the full-time historian at The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2002, The Green-Wood Historic Fund restored and rededicated New York City’s Civil War Soldiers Monument on Green-Wood’s Battle Hill (so named because it was a Revolutionary War battlefield). After the ceremonies, I thanked the uniformed reenactors who joined in the re-dedication. They thanked me for the honor of participating. It soon struck me: perhaps there was something more we could do at Green-Wood to honor those who had sacrificed so much during the Civil War.

Searching For Our Civil War Veterans By Jeffrey I. Richman BROOKLYN, N.Y.—Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838. By the time of the Civil War, it was the place for New Yorkers to be interred. Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, are interred there by the thousands. Green-Wood Cemetery’s Civil War Project is now in its 15th year. Since its inception, volunteers have identified 5,000 veterans, including almost 100 Confederates, who rest at Green-Wood.

Given the go-ahead by GreenWood’s president, Richard J. Moylan, we launched The GreenWood Historic Fund’s Civil War Project late in 2002. Our goal was to identify those who had served, to tell their story, and to honor them. We began our work with volunteers searching the grounds for any indications of a Civil War veteran’s burial: carved inscriptions or markers put up by regimental associations or the Grand Army of the Republic. When we began, we naively index cards at the New York State Military Museum, for each veteran for whom a governmentissued gravestone was ordered about a century ago (before this database was online), consulted pension records at the National Archives, regimental histories, the cemetery’s chronological books (comparing those interred at Green-Wood of appropriate age to have served in the Civil War with soldier records, looking for men who died in soldier homes, in battle, or from disease in Southern thought, based on numbers from those who had walked GreenWood Cemetery over the years, that there were perhaps 500 or so Civil War veterans interred there; were we wrong! In the ensuing years, with the help of hundreds of volunteers, we searched through The New York Times and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle online for articles and obituaries identifying Civil War veterans, compared 162,000 names of men mustered into regiments and companies raised primarily in Brooklyn or New York City against the cemetery’s online database of interments, reviewed states during the Civil War), and examined cemetery gravestones, Callahan’s list of naval officers, online databases, as well as many other resources. Descendants and researchers have contacted us from all across America and around the world with leads and have generously shared their information, photographs, and letters with us. After years of work, we have identified 5,000 people interred at Green-Wood who played a role in the Civil War—both civilian and military. Volunteers have written biographies, done followup research on them as more and more resources have appeared on the Internet, and rewritten their biographies. These biographies are now online at Green-Wood’s website, green-wood.com. They are fully searchable and have been enhanced with many portraits and gravestone photographs. Using Green-Wood Cemetery’s records and maps, we also have located the graves of each individual. Remarkably, we have found that approximately half of these individuals—2,300 of 5,000—lay in unmarked graves. Our task is far from finished. That is 46% of our identified in- The Civil War Project, after going dividuals, a much higher percent- on for more than three times as age than we had anticipated. For long as the Civil War itself—is each of these people, we have still a work in progress. We are applied to the Department of Vet- sure that we have missed many erans Affairs for a gravestone, veterans. and Green-Wood workers have We will continue on with this installed most stones, with a few project; our work is not yet done. more to be installed. All this is I look forward to hearing from free of charge. anyone who has information During the course of this proj- about a veteran interred at Greenect, we organized three Civil Wood that we have missed or has War gallery exhibitions and three additional information and/or Grand Processions, in 2007, 2011 images of those we have found. and 2015, during which visitors Please contact me at jeffrichwalked the cemetery in the dark, [email protected] with reenactors, artillery, and muThe online biographies are sicians stationed along the way, the fruit of thousands and thouand with a luminary lighting the sands of hours of volunteer work. grave of each Civil War veteran. Susan Rudin, our amazing editor, I have written and Green-Wood has written biography after bioghas published two books related raphy. Terry Svensen located and to our Civil War veterans: Final photographed every grave. Camping Ground: Civil War VetSue Ramsey, an exceptional erans at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood genealogist, and Jon Hill, a high Cemetery, In Their Own Words school student fascinated by (2007) and “The Gallant Sims”: history, have done years of folA Civil War Hero Rediscovered low-up research, finding more (2016). That latter book was the and more about these men and product of a response to an ad women. that I ran in the Civil War News Those who sacrificed so much in 2005, asking for information deserve to be remembered. We about Civil War veterans interred honor and remember them, at Green-Wood. sharing the stories of their lives.