A Backwoods Cemetery and a Civil War Mystery

Several years ago, a trip to an abandoned cemetery in southeast Kentucky led me to a small project to learn more about a young man remembered on a headstone in this seemingly forgotten place.  My niece and I visited this cemetery to locate the grave of my 5th great-grandfather, Lewis Green, a Revolutionary War veteran.  His marker was easy to identify, slightly outside the cemetery's perimeter.  

                                                      Lewis Green Marker, courtesy of the author

It was high summer, hot and humid as blazes.  Anyone who has hiked in southeastern Kentucky knows how overgrown the area is.  We could not explore deeply into the cemetery.  However, our small search outside the cemetery boundaries was enough to give me a case of poison ivy.

                                                Kirby Cemetery, Bell County, Kentucky, courtesy of the author

We photographed several graves, but I did not look at the photographs until I returned home.  Eventually, I examined all of them and was excited to find one that, with further research, might have a story associated with it.  The stone was of a soldier who died during the Civil War.

                                                                    Grave of Robert Green, courtesy of the author

Private Robert Green, CO K, 64th NC INF was a Confederate soldier.  The headstone says, "BURIED AT OAKWOOD CEM. CHICAGO IL." This inscription is what piqued my interest.  Why would a Civil War soldier who died in 1864 be buried in Chicago?  A little research led me to a story from the war that I had not previously known.

Robert appeared to be a Confederate soldier or a Confederate irregular, though many of his family members became Union soldiers.  Whether Robert was part of the 64th North Carolina or whether he simply attached himself to this unit while they were attempting to hold the Cumberland Gap is unclear.  Though the battle was bloodless, over 2000 Confederate troops ultimately surrendered to the Union army between the 7th and 9th of September 1863.  Some Confederate soldiers escaped, but Union soldiers took Robert and 287 fellow soldiers to Camp Douglas, a notorious Union prisoner-of-war camp on par with the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp, Andersonville.  Officers who were captured were taken to Camp Johnson in Ohio.

       General Ambrose Burnside's Union Forces Passing Through the Cumberland Gap, September 1863, public domain

Thousands of prisoners brought to this Chicago camp never went home.  Records show that one in seven prisoners died at Camp Douglas.  When they died, they were interred in two small cemeteries on the grounds of Camp Douglas, along the shore of Lake Michigan, in what was later called the City Cemetery.  

                                          Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois, public Wikimedia Commons

                                                            Camp Douglas Prisoners, 1863, Wikimedia Commons

Flooding caused the removal of some of the later burials.  Eventually, workers moved all the burials to a mass grave in the Confederate Mound section of the Oak Woods Cemetery.  General John C. Underwood, regional head of the United Confederate Veterans, dedicated a monument of a Confederate soldier in this section of the cemetery on May 30th, 1895.  Ten thousand members of the public and President Grover Cleveland attended the ceremonies.  In 1911, the Commission for Marking the Graves of Confederate Dead raised the monument above ground level and added the names of the Confederate dead, including Robert Green's.  

                                 Confederate Mound, Oakwood Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois, public domain

Robert died of dysentery in the camp at age 28, one year after the date of his capture.  Robert left a wife and several children behind in the hills of Kentucky, just a few miles from where the Battle of Cumberland Gap occurred.   His wife applied for a pension in 1916.  The information collected by the Adjutant General did not show Robert on any muster rolls, nor did he find any enlistment record.  His wife, Matilda, may not have received any pension for Robert's service.  Robert is my 1st cousin, four times removed, and is the grandson of Lewis Green.

   Matilda Jackson Green's Pension Request, Family Search

Letter in Response to Pension Request, collection of Nathan Long

Thank you to Nathan Long, who corrected some errors in this blog and shared some of his extensive knowledge with me.