Rebecca Sineath, a laundress for the 21st Infantry was likely at Fort Wagner on Morris Island. The Island had two small forts protecting an entrance to Charleston Harbor. June 1863 was the lead up to the July assault by the 54th Massachusetts, an all African American federal unit. There were multiple Union war ships firing on the island as part of two major battles. The Confederate side ultimately held the island defeating the smaller federal force. However they abandoned the fort a month later.
Rebecca was buried along the edge of ‘Soldiers Ground’ cemetery with members of the 21st Infantry.
Rebecca, Killed In Battle
Today there is nothing left of Morris Island itself. An old Lighthouse sits on spot, the island washed away.
There’s no shortage of interesting things in the old cemeteries. Below are a few stones that caught my attention on our last walk around.
Because Charleston is at or near sea level you can find a number of ‘above ground’ burial sites. None are as elaborate as New Orleans but they all have carvings on large slabs of slate that serve as the ‘top’ of the grave.
Three Old Markers
Off near the old Umbra Plantation house there is an area where broken or worn out headstones have been placed flat on the ground. There were several I wanted to photograph, later read the long inscriptions. To get above them meant walking on the other stones. Well, it just felt wrong walking on these headstones like a pathway. I left them there undisturbed.
Three Old Markers
Last here, a few full gravesite markers. No names or dates. Just the short curbs outlining the grave. A large urn that one day probably had flowers growing inside.
This is a common graveyard marker here. The outline of the individual burial plot in small curbstones with some type of simple group monument. I rather like this. Plain and respectful.
Three Old Markers
All the above were photographed at Magnolia Cemetery and St. Lawrence Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina.
Childsbury Towne, South Carolina existed from 1707 to 1750. Eventually the land was taken and added to the nearby Strawberry Plantation on the Cooper River.
Soldiers Ground; I’m not sure where the name came from. I think it was a description once and it slowly became the unofficial name. It certainly fits.
The upper end of the Charleston peninsula had a small plantation and wetlands. When the church graveyards filled the area became a place of cemeteries. The Confederate States government established the grounds on Umbra Plantation and Magnolia Cemetery for military burials during the Civil War, in 1871 the Ladies Memorial Society took possession.
Two headstones, the original with no information, a second and newer but still too old and faded to read.
Dated 1856 it is not the oldest, but the cemetery district was just officially recognized by Charleston a few years earlier.
I had never noticed these two since they were close to the old house. IDA may have been buried on the original Umbra Plantation property. There is a small stone somewhere here dated 1800, this was definitely an old member of the Umbra plantation.
A few grave sites in Soldiers Ground are now among a line Palms. Most, like below, were well worn and nothing can be read clearly.
However one grave site had a newer stone of the kind used to replace old damaged ones. He was Lt. McCowen of Co K, 53rd Georgia Infantry.
Lt. McCowen, from Josey Road, Swarr, Georgia died on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg along with 50,000 others. This was the battle that changed the direction of the US Civil War to the Union.
Lt McCowen July 2, 1863
Co. K, 53rd Georgia Infantry, was a Confederate unit in the American Civil War, known as the “Quitman Guard,” primarily from Quitman County, Georgia, serving in the Army of Northern Virginia through major campaigns like Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, eventually surrendering at Appomattox with only a few men.
There were conflicting records on Lt McCowen’s death, however one was a typo on the date of the Gettysburg battle. Also he was thought to have been buried with Unknowns at Rose Farm in Gettysburg, PA. (Rose Farm was the location in the battle of Gettysburg where numerous soldiers from both sides were found)
However 80 Confederate soldiers (known as the “Gettysburg Dead”) were reinterred at Magnolia’s ‘Soldier’s Ground’ area in 1871. Because he had been among South Carolina soldiers at the time of his death he was mistakenly moved with them to Soldiers Ground.
Jere Baxter, of Charlotte, N.C., found his great-great-granduncle’s mistaken grave after years of researching his family genealogy. The new headstone most likely was provided by the Baxter family in 2003.
Note; I’m always amazed at what information can be found on line with some research.
The ‘Soldiers Ground’ was never meant to be a pretty place, it fit a need. It was land taken from a plantation and not part of the nearby cemetery. The Ground is maintained now by a private trust. Many of the aging headstones are repaired, or even replaced. Still, this is not a neat and tidy place. Probably shouldn’t be.
