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FREDERICKSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY holds an important place in the
life of our local community. Its five monuments remind us of the area's
unique -- and tragic -- place in American history. Its peaceful setting
and beautiful grounds offer a place for quiet reflection amidst our
fast-paced world. And its 6,800 graves remind us of the sacrifices that
we owe to those who came before us and to those who risk their lives
even today that we may enjoy the fruits of liberty.
Fredericksburg National Cemetery's significance transcends the barriers
of rank, sex, and race. Buried side by side are men and women, officers
and enlisted men, blacks and whites, fathers and sons, mothers and
children. Yet here, all are equal. A colonel has the same headstone as a
private. The graves of black soldiers are indistinguishable from those
of their white counterparts. Perhaps it is this equality in death -- an
equality so elusive in life -- that helps make this cemetery such a
special place.
Fredericksburg National Cemetery was created immediately after the Civil
War, between 1866 and 1868. Not surprisingly, it was Fredericksburg's
African American population -- the newly freed slaves -- that first
embraced this hallowed ground. As early as the mid and late 1860s,
African Americans journeyed to Fredericksburg to decorate the graves of
the Union dead with flowers. Former slaves came by the hundreds from
places as far away as Washington, D.C., and Richmond. They came to pay
homage to those who had made the supreme sacrifice in order that they
might be free.
For black citizens, Fredericksburg National Cemetery was a
tangible reminder of their newfound liberty. For that reason, their
ceremonies contained an element of joy that whites could not understand.
A Northern veteran noted with some perplexity that Memorial Day was
regarded as a gala day by African Americans. He could not understand the
former slaves' joy because he had not experienced their bondage. He took
freedom for granted.
FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS, Fredericksburg's African American
community made an annual pilgrimage to this hallowed ground to celebrate
its freedom and to honor those who made that freedom possible.
They would gather at my church -- Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site) --
and would march in a procession up National Boulevard (now Lafayette
Boulevard) to the center of this cemetery, led by a local black band.
Once inside the gates, black speakers from as far away as North Carolina
and Washington, D.C., would address the hushed crowds. Did the speakers
talk about slavery or freedom? Did they dwell on the injustices of the
past or look forward to the more hopeful future that lay ahead? We do
not know, for no one recorded their words. What we do know is that at
the end of each ceremony, members of the audience scattered throughout
the grounds to consecrate the graves with their flowers and their
prayers.
Consecrate is not too strong a word, for to the former slaves,
this was sacred ground, not only because it held the fifteen thousand
dead soldiers but also because it represented freedom.
For Fredericksburg's white population, the cemetery's grounds came to
have a different, if no less significant meaning, for it was here that
the seeds of reconciliation between North and South first took root and
flourished.
However, it was not always so. In 1871, when Union veterans first came
to Fredericksburg to honor their dead, local townspeople shunned them
and let them know that they were not welcome. The wounds of war were
still fresh, and ceremonies in those days brought division rather than
reconciliation.
The editor of the Fredericksburg Ledger expressed the view of
white citizens in those early days when he wrote:
"How does the case differ here? Who are these 'heroes' whose graves you
invite this community, white and black, unitedly, to 'honor'? Are they
not, some of them, the men who bombarded and destroyed one half of
Fredericksburg, who sacked our houses, who profaned and polluted our
homes and firesides and most sacred relics of the past, who robbed us,
and even destroyed what they could not steal, who desecrated our altars
and our churches, in which we had worshipped since childhood? Did they
not overwhelm us at last by more 'brute force of numbers,' after the
Confederates, man for man, had whipped and destroyed them two to one?
All these things are history and will not be denied by any but
the ignorant or the depraved."
TIME EVENTUALLY HEALED many of the wounds left by the war. In the
1880s, a spirit of reconciliation swept across the land. Men who crossed
swords with one another as enemies twenty years earlier now embraced one
another as brothers. Each Memorial Day, at national cemeteries across
the country, Union and Confederate veterans met to pay homage to the
dead, to express fraternity toward their former foes, and to voice a
common loyalty to the United States.
At such celebrations, orators dismissed the issues that had divided the
country. Instead, they spoke of the courage and sacrifice common to men
of both armies. In 1888, a Union veteran declared:
"The annual visitation to her graves is not to stir up sectional strife
but to remember the heroic deeds of men who were worthy of grateful
remembrance. No loftier patriotism ever burned in the heart of a
soldier, no more heroic courage was ever displayed than by men who wore
the gray and the blue in the sanguinary struggle which closed
twenty-five years ago."
So strong were the bonds that formed between old soldiers of the North
and South that in years when Union veterans' groups were unable to
attend the event, Southerners on their own initiative marched to the
national cemetery to decorate the graves of their former foes.
Would that we would emulate their example!
Today it is fashionable among some people to fan the embers of animosity
between North and South, but it was not always so. At places like the
Fredericksburg National Cemetery, Northerners and Southerners made the
conscious decision to embrace one another in fellowship.
Today, Fredericksburg National Cemetery can still bring citizens in
Fredericksburg of divergent views together. Whether liberals or
conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, pro-war or anti-war, we can set
aside our differences at this place on this day and unite as Americans
in celebrating our common heritage and in remembering the noble
sacrifice of those who have given up their lives for this country.
Fredericksburg National Cemetery is a very special place indeed! |
Fredericksburg
National Cemetery
