A Civil War Mystery Solved

Most people leaving Kingstree by the Lamar Johnson bridge are unaware of the small cemetery to their right on Main Street just before they reach the bridge. Started in 1856 by the Baptists, whose church once sat on the lot in front of the cemetery, this burial ground has one historic monument that has long puzzled those who are aware of its existence.

The Baptist Cemetery as it looks today.

The monument is dedicated to the memory of 19 Confederate soldiers who gave their lives during the closing days of the Civil War. The story had long been told that 19 soldiers from Georgia had died in Kingstree and were buried here, but as there were no individual markers for the soldiers, no one knew for certain the full story of how they came to be there. A number of years ago, state archaeologist, Dr. Jon Leader, at the request of a local resident, spent a morning in the cemetery using ground penetrating radar to see if he could determine the location of the graves. While the equipment showed anomalies, there were not enough of them to account for 19 separate burials.

The soldiers' monument at the Baptist Cemetery.

Recently, however, I ran across two stories written by the late Laura Cromer Hemingway and published in The News & Courier in 1933, which tell the story of the marker and the soldiers who died here 154 years ago. I'll let Mrs. Hemingway tell the story:

"It was during the Christmas season of 1864 that news of Sherman's approach reached the people of Williamsburg County, throwing them into a panic. But they learned, too, that (Confederate) General Hardee was in advance of Sherman's army. When Hardee reached Kingstree, he paused to recuperate and to outfit his men to hold back Sherman. When Sherman changed his plans and sought another route to Columbia, Hardee made ready to march on northward. His men were ill, and there were 21 too ill to continue the march. These were left behind to the mercy of the people of Kingstree."

While in Kingstree, Hardee's men camped in the field between the Gewinner house, on the corner of what is now Main and Longstreet streets, and the river. Reportedly that December of 1864 was a cold and wet one, and as the war had dragged on for four years, Hardee's troops were worn out and ill-equipped to handle the inclement weather, and so many of them succumbed to fever.

The west face of the marker.

Laura Hemingway continues: "The Baptist Church at the river was turned into an improvised hospital where the women of the community took charge and nursed the sick soldiers. Two of the number were removed to a private home. These were the only two to recover. What eventually became of them, none knew."

She noted that the 19 who died were buried in the cemetery and later disinterred and buried in a single casket near the gate of the cemetery with an obelisk over the grave, with the inscription that it was erected by the Kingstree Council No. 18, Friends of Temperance. She wrote that no one living in Kingstree in 1933 remembered any organization by that name. This was the great mystery of the Baptist Cemetery, she said. She added that several newspaper writers had published stories throughout the years, asking for information, but had never received any.

The north face of the marker.

This time, however, an answer was quick in coming. On December 24, 1933, The News & Courier published another story written by Laura Hemingway, in which she announced that after the publication of her earlier story about the cemetery and the marker, she had received a letter from Dr. N.G. Gewinner of Macon, GA. Although he was only a small boy in 1864, he remembered the encampment of Hardee's army in the field near his home, and he was able to fill in the gaps of the story about the 19 Confederate soldiers, leaving only the mystery of their identities, which he did not know.

He noted that the soldiers were originally buried outside the cemetery on the slope of the hill which at that time led to the river bank. On that point Laura Hemingway disagreed with him as she believed the soldiers were originally buried at the back of the cemetery. Dr. Gewinner, however, wrote that 10 years later in 1875, he was in charge of the exhumation and reburial of their remains. He wrote, "They had been buried in shallow graves, no coffins, only wrapped in blankets. Two or more buried in the same hole, and when we uncovered them after being buried 10 years or more, the blankets had rotted, and their bones were so intermingled that it was impossible to separate them. We could estimate the number only by counting the skulls. In taking them up, we located as many as we could, but I have always believed that we did not get one half, and that as many more are still lying on the hillside."

The south face of the monument.

Dr. Gewinner continued, "All the bones were reverently assembled, put together in a large pine box and buried, the monument placed directly over them." He added, "For the sake of appearance, we made dummy graves. I painted and put up the pine head-boards. As well as I can recall they had not been all unknown, as I was supplied by some of the good ladies with seven or eight names." However, those "dummy" markers rotted, and the list of the names was lost so that today none of the 19 soldiers names is known. It is believed that they were part of a unit from Georgia.

Dr. Gewinner noted that the Friends of Temperance was a dramatic society which put on plays at the courthouse. Members that he could recall were Mary Jacobs, Lena and Madeleine Levy, Jessie Manheim, M.F. Heller, and Marion Levin. Louis Jacobs managed the troupe, which performed not only in Kingstree but also in neighboring towns. He said door receipts sometimes ran as high as $800 to $1000. It was from the money raised through these theatrical attractions that they bought the obelisk-like marker to commemorate the soldiers who had died here.

And so, although we still do not know the names of the soldiers, we now have the full story of how they came to be buried in the old Baptist Cemetery and who placed the marker in the cemetery in their memory.

Sign on the gate of the Baptist Cemetery.