A few showers this evening with mostly clear conditions overnight. Low 57F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..
A few showers this evening with mostly clear conditions overnight. Low 57F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
The 'Swamp Angel' cannon in Cadwalader Park.
The Mercer County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, located in Cadwalader Park in Trenton.
A poster on display at the National Guard Militia Museum in Lawrence shows an example of New Jersey’s efforts to recruit Black soldiers to fight for the Union in the Civil War.
Memorial Day, as one historian notes, “was born out of necessity” — the human need to transform pain and trauma into hope and wholeness.
And while an observance of this type has been shared throughout history and is currently practiced around the world, America’s day of memory was born from a time when nearly a million Americans were killed by fellow Americans during the Civil War.
Historically, the first official Memorial Day — then called Decoration Day — occurred May 30, 1868. It was held at Arlington National Cemetery and designed to honor both the Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.
However, there are some historic precedents that helped shape the occasion.
One was in 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina, during the waning days of the Civil War.
The Confederate Army had turned a country club race track grounds into a prison where more than 260 Union soldiers died from disease and exposure. They were then unceremoniously tossed into a mass grave.
When Charleston was taken by Union forces, the newly freed slaves went to the grave site to find the bodies of the Union soldiers, gave them a dignified burial, and interred them by a sign that bore the epitaph “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
Then, according to the New York Tribune and the Charleston Courier newspapers, “a crowd of 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves with some white missionaries, staged a parade around the race track. Three thousand Black schoolchildren carried bouquets of flowers and sang ‘John Brown’s Body.’ Members of the famed 54th Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments were in attendance and performed double-time marches. Black ministers recited verses from the Bible.”
Another precedent was the growing practice of women decorating the graves of their husbands, sons, or other family members who had died during the war.
Nevertheless, John A. Logan, a general in the Grand Army of the Republic, is the name associated with the 1868 Declaration Day. He called it a day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.”
And while the war was over, the tensions between North and South continued during and after the Reconstruction and lessened during the Spanish-American War, when the sons of the South and North fought together.
Taking that opportunity to try to unify the United States of America, President William McKinley traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, and presented a speech where he urged the North and South to share the care of the graves of those who died in the Civil War.
“Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate Civil War is a tribute to American valor,” he said, glossing over the issue of slavery.
The nation seems to have agreed and began maintaining Civil War graves and building monuments that also glossed over the painful reality that people were enslaved but used collective energy to recognize the war that threatened the United States.
Recent events have showed that many Civil War Memorials were ill conceived while others allow us to be touched by the past.
While the losses in World War I and World War II strengthen the importance of a day of memorial, Decoration Day became the national holiday Memorial Day in 1971.
For those looking to reconnect to the war that started Memorial Day, there are several places in our region where the ghosts of the Civil War can be found.
According to museum officials, visitors to the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey in Lawrence will find “one of the largest collections of New Jersey-related Civil War research material in the country, including copies of diaries, letters, newspaper clippings, memoirs, regimental histories, and articles. “
It also pays “particular attention to the diversity of the New Jersey citizen soldier and his or her experience.”
Here one learns that New Jersey provided more than 88,000 men to the Union cause, some 10,000 over its quota, who participated in 37 infantry regiments, three cavalry regiments, five artillery batteries, and several independent militia companies. These units fought in both the Eastern and Western theaters of operations and were involved in almost every major battle.
The exhibit also cites several Civil War military leaders, including Major General George B. McClellan, who later became governor of New Jersey and is buried in Trenton, as well as how African Americans participated in the Civil War.
A poster on display at the National Guard Militia Museum in Lawrence shows an example of New Jersey’s efforts to recruit Black soldiers to fight for the Union in the Civil War.
Text notes that while a New Jersey census listed 4,866 black males between the ages of 18 and 45, approximately 3,000 served in the Union Army and Navy. “Most enrolled in the United States Colored Troops after they were formed in 1863. Prior to that date, blacks enrolled in the Union Navy and other states’ colored units.”
Also on view is a map of Trenton-area Civil War Camps, including Camp Olden and the Trenton Barracks, and materials from Trenton Grand Army of the Republic memorabilia.
The New Jersey Militia Museum’s Civil War Flag collection is also on view — but at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.
The collection consists of more than 100 flags that include Jersey cavalry and volunteer regiment flags as well as captured Confederate battle flags.
A rotating exhibit, the current one on view through June 22 includes items belonging to General Robert McAllister of Belvidere.
According the New Jersey Civil Heritage Association, McAllister “is most known for commanding the 11th New Jersey Infantry in 1862-1864 and for leading the old Second New Jersey Brigade in the last year of the war. Items to be put on display for the first time include McAllister’s sword, scabbard, sash, gloves and belt plate, which were recently donated to the State Museum, and also his kepi and a piece of shrapnel that was fired into the 11th’s line at Chancellorsville, which are on loan.”
The Mercer County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument has been greeting visitors to Trenton’s Cadwalader Park since it was unveiled on July 4, 1907.
The tall high granite monument’s front bears the inscription “Mercer County to her officers and men who served in the U.S. Army and Navy 1861-1865.”
Other inscriptions include the statements, “Liberty and Union/One Flag/One Land/One Nation Evermore” and “Erected as a tribute to Loyalty, Patriotism, and Valor.”
There are also two fragments of poetry.
The Mercer County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, located in Cadwalader Park in Trenton.
One is from the ancient Latin poet Horace: “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s homeland).
The other says, “On fame’s eternal camping ground/Their silent tents are spread,/And glory guards with solemn round,/The bivouac of the dead.” It’s from the popular 19th-century poem “Bivouac of the Dead” by journalist and poet Theodore O’Hara, who was also a Civil War Confederate Colonel.
According to the City of Trenton publication “A Celebration of Cadwalader Park,” “That the monument exists at all is a testament to the energy and determination of General James R. Rusling, a Trentonian who served with distinction in the War between the States. Even with Rusling’s unflagging enthusiasm for the project, it took Trenton’s citizens 18 years to raise enough money to erect the monument. A small copper box was placed in the base of the shaft that contained the name of every person, business, or association that contributed to the fund, whether the gift was 50 cents or $500.” Its total cost was $15,000 (approximately $500,000 in 2022).
Until recent times, a life-sized statue of a sailor and soldier stood guard at the base of the monument. Today, they are missing and presumed to have been stolen.
The Swamp Angel, the Civil War cannon with an angelic nickname, is located near the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument.
As the above city publication notes, the “legendary Civil War cannon was once sold as scrap metal to the Phoenix Iron Works in Trenton. A sharp-eyed Trentonian recognized the Swamp Angel as a historical artifact and rescued it from the scrap pile. Cast in West Point in 1863, the Swamp Angel was deployed in the bombardment of Charleston before bursting as it fired its 36th round. Initially installed on a massive pedestal at the corner of Clinton and Perry Streets, the Swamp Angel was moved to Cadwalader Park as part of the Civil War Centennial program on April 12, 1961.”
The historic Riverview Cemetery in Trenton is the resting place of approximately 1,000 Union Army and Navy veterans.
While most are in a plot devoted to the Grand Army of the Republic, others are buried alone or in family plots with regionally familiar names. Among them are Lieutenant DeKlyn Lalor, General Gershom Mott, and General and former New Jersey Governor George B. McClellan.
The grave monument to McClellan, who commanded the Army of the Potomac, is the most prominent and imposing on the grounds. It also comes with a story.
The 'Swamp Angel' cannon in Cadwalader Park.
As Riverview Cemetery historian Richard Sauers says in a 2021 U.S. 1 interview, “McClellan was originally buried in another plot near the grave of his father-in-law and supporter, Major General Randolph B. Marcy, who seems to have forgotten that one can’t order someone into love.
“Marcy insisted his daughter, Mary, marry McClellan despite her dislike of him,” says Sauer. “When he died, he was buried with a modest marker near Marcy. Twenty years later a public subscription was started and a monument was built first. Then he was moved, then his wife was moved to be buried with him,” despite the reality that she wanted to be buried near him in the first place.
At least two area cemeteries hold the remains of Civil War veterans of African ancestry:
The Princessville Cemetery, located on Princeton Pike, has four Union soldiers. And the Locust Hill Cemetery on Hart Street in Trenton also includes the remains of several veterans of the Civil War.
To learn where other area Civil War veterans are buried, visit the New Jersey Civil War Gravestones website, newjerseycivilwargravestones.org.
Princeton University’s 1920 Memorial Atrium was erected in Nassau Hall to honor the names of university students who had died in American wars, including the Civil War.
Yet, as the Princeton University document “Princeton’s Civil War Memorial” notes, the 70 students’ names on the Civil War wall tablet have no designation for which side the students were on.
As the document’s author writes, “The Civil War and the preceding ‘sectional conflict’ over slavery posed a unique challenge for Princeton. During the antebellum period, Southern students comprised a large proportion of the college’s student body — often exceeding 50 percent between 1790 and the Civil War. The geographic diversity of students and faculty lent Princeton the air of a national institution, as did the college’s deep history of Revolutionary War activity. Princeton therefore attempted to navigate a middle path between the two sides of the looming conflict between North and South. The outbreak of war, however, destroyed the college’s attempts to transcend sectional and political divisions. Princetonians entered battle against one another: more than 600 students and alumni enlisted in the Union and Confederate armies, with more than half fighting for the latter.”
The writer says one of the reasons that “the nearly century-old memorial symbolically buries the causes of the war along with the war dead” is that it reflects “the politics of Civil War commemoration at the time of its creation in the 1920s. It also exemplifies the continuing struggle of both Princeton University and the United States to confront the full meaning of the Civil War and the system of human slavery at its center.”
The Civil War and Native American Museum is located in the John Abbott II farm, 2202 Kuser Road in Hamilton, and maintained by an independent nonprofit organization.
Museum organizers note that “although small, (it) is the first Civil War Museum in New Jersey. The exhibits include uniforms, weapons, equipment, and material relating to the experience of the common soldier in the Civil War.
Due to the pandemic the museum is currently closed to visitors. www.campolden.org/museum.html
The Clara Barton School House in Bordentown, though not an actual Civil War monument, is a tribute to the Civil War nurse known as the “Angel of the Battlefields.”
Before the war — and her traveling with the Union Army, tending to the wounded on the battlefield, and founding the American Red Cross — Clara Barton arrived in Bordentown in 1852 and established New Jersey’s first free public school. The 1839 building she used still stands and is maintained by the Bordentown Historical Society.
It — like all of the above mentioned places — is a reminder of a painful part of American history that still haunts our region.
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