Taking time to walk through the Winchester National Cemetery, it’s obvious the purpose for which this cemetery was made… as a place in which to bury (actually, rebury) Union soldiers.
In addition to the graves that dot this relatively small parcel of land, there are also a number of monuments recognizing the sacrifices of men from places like New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
But in-between these graves and monuments focused on Union soldiers are the graves of veterans from later years… not everyone buried here is a Union soldier, Civil War veteran, or “Northerner.” You can easily tell that by looking at the individual headstones and reading the inscriptions.
Yet, there are some that aren’t quite as clear. One example is this stone…
This is plot 4288 in which John Richard Gill, “U.S.A.” is buried.
It may be that the average person who walks through the cemetery won’t make much of this stone, after all, there’s just a name, and the indication that this man, at some point, apparently served in the U.S. military.
In fact, John Richard Gill was a private in Co. B, 1st United States Cavalry, and later served in Co. G, 2nd Veteran Volunteers. He was a Union soldier.
In 1869, this Union soldier married a girl from neighboring Shenandoah County (Mary Jane Stidley, daughter of Robert Stidley).
He was also a pensioner, having applied January 25, 1886.
He died on October 9, 1905, and was buried with full military honors, courtesy of the local Grand Army of the Republic Post… yes, Winchester, Virginia had a G.A.R. Post., named for Union general James A. Mulligan (it appears to have been the only G.A.R. post in the Shenandoah Valley).
This is one instance in which a little doesn’t appear to go a long way as the story behind this man was much more than the headstone tells. On the other hand, for those who take the time to know who the people were beneath the stones, this simple inscription actually goes a long way.
You see, while you can’t possibly know that which I have already mentioned by just looking at the stone, nor would you know, looking at the stone, that Gill was… a Virginian. He was a Virginian who opted for blue instead of gray. He was born ca. 1835, the son of William and Catherine Gill and, like his wife, he too was born in the Shenandoah Valley, but in Frederick County. He even lived at one point, in my home county of Page, residing with his sister in his final years… where, perhaps, he bounced his niece on his knee… a daughter of another Civil War soldier… a Confederate veteran.
That’s all very interesting to me, but this stone leaves me curious. I’m left wondering if Pvt. Gill asked for his stone to be engraved so simply, without any mention of his unit. I’m also wondering if he asked for nothing more than “U.S.A.” to be engraved on the stone. It’s a standard U.S. veteran headstone for the time. He could have requested more on it. His fellow veterans could have looked after him, and asked that his unit information be included. On the other hand, though a Virginian by birth and in death, does the simple inscription “U.S.A.” on his headstone reflect what was the bottom line for him?
Andy Hall
September 8, 2010
Neat post.
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how veterans’ stones (Union, Confederate or from later wars) generally tell us almost nothing about the men buried under them. The stones reduce their legacy to their military service — which in some cases may not be particularly dramatic or significant aspects of a long life well-lived — and even then, they don’t really explain much about that service: where they went, what they saw and did and experienced.
What got me thinking about this a VA stone, recently set up over the grave of a Confederate colonel buried a few blocks from my home. Typically the stone gives his name and rank, his dates and his CS unit. Unless you’re a pretty hard-core historian, that latter bit of information is meaningless unless you make a note of it and go look it up later, as I did. Turns out the man, Charles DeWitt Anderson, played a crucial and, from the Confederate viewpoint, disastrous role in the Battle of Mobile Bay, surrendering Fort Gaines to the Federals.
But his civilian life is even more interesting. His parents died on the ship bringing him to Texas, so he and his brother were adopted by a local minister. Anderson was the first Texan appointed to West Point. Although he did not graduate from the academy, he was subsequently directly commissioned an Army officer and served on the frontier in the years before the Civil War.
After the war he worked as an engineer, serving two terms as the city engineer in Austin, and later moved to Galveston, his old hometown. He spent his last years as keeper of the Fort Point lighthouse, dying there “in harness” in 1901.
None of that’s reflected in his headstone, and even his less-than-glorious career as a Confederate officer is simply reduced to a rank and regiment number. I find that a little sad.
Robert Moore
September 8, 2010
I agree wholeheartedly and will respond to your comments at length a little later
Robert Moore
September 9, 2010
Andy,
As I said, I agree with your thoughts on the limitations of headstones for CW folks. I especially get concerned when we see folks, today, getting headstones for people back then, while not quite clear as to what those people back then may have thought about the limitations of a headstone focused in their years in the CW alone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be able to get a headstone for a grave where there is no headstone. Yet, I think a fair number of headstones ordered for CW folks are more a reflection of how some today “frame” the life of that person, and (when we think of how we may know nothing of a person except for that which is presented to us in a headstone in a casual walk through a cemetery), even “rob” the person in the grave of a greater story by doing so. When we get a headstone today, for someone who died in a time beyond our memory, even some 150 years ago, are we making a statement of honor? “Here lies a brave soldier of the Civil War”. Or are we capturing (either not realizing we are doing so… or maybe actually realizing it) a moment in time where the focus is on us telling the story… framing that story… to suit our preference? What does that mean for cemetery walkers to see some of these stones in 50, 100, or 150 years from now? It’s one thing to frame the story of a person in an article or a book, but a headstone is where I think some may be crossing the line.
Andy Hall
September 9, 2010
Agree with this, thanks for expanding upon it. The inability to really capture a flesh-and-blood person’s life on a gravestone is not limited to veterans, of course, but it does seem particularly acute today, in the United States, where we’ve very much fallen into a collective frame of mind that almost fetishizes military service, to the exclusion of all other experiences/contributions/struggles of their lives. (I challenge you to find a story about troops coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan that doesn’t include at least one occurrence of the word “hero.” The pendulum of public perception and cliche has swung all the way to the other extreme from the immediate post-Vietnam period of the late 1970s.) I don’t mean to denigrate that service at all — because for a great many soldiers, 150 years ago and today, military service is a fundamental and critical turning point in their lives — but particularly for those who do not make the military a career and go on to live long lives afterward, it’s only part of the larger picture.
Ain’t no easy answer here, I’m afraid.