Union Soldiers Body Was HIDDEN In Old Slave Cemetery | Boddie Plantation Cemetery

hey everybody it's Robert coming to you with another adventure into history oftentimes when we're exploring these old graveyards whether they be small family cemeteries out in the woods or well-maintained cemeteries we find the graves of Confederate soldiers which is no surprise because of course we are in Georgia which was a confederate State during the Civil War if you were a fighting age and sometimes even younger you are almost certainly going to serve the Confederate Army so again no surprise that we see a lot of Confederate soldiers around here but a question that we often get asked is why we don't film the graves of Union soldiers and it's because they're really not that common around here after the war was over with the Union Soldiers would generally speaking go back home to their home states in the north whereas Confederate soldiers who were from this area anyway returned back home and of course there are union Graves around here down in the South most of them are around battlefields uh where the soldiers died if the bodies could be identified a lot of times that they were returned home but if they couldn't be identified then they're generally still around battlefields as unknown soldiers and of course the 13 000 who died at Andersonville prison but today we're going to tell you about the Hidden Grave of a Union soldier located here or somewhere near here in this Cemetery that started as an old slave Cemetery we are at what is known today as the Saint John CME Cemetery this is uh the former location of Saint John CME myth CME Church St John CME Church still exists it is located inside the city limits of Waverly Hall today and it is known as Saint John Pitts Memorial Church but when it was first organized it was built here and it started here in the uh let's say after the Civil War under a brush Arbor they had meetings under this big brush Arbor and then later they were able to build a church and I believe that I read once that the first church here was built in 1874. but if we go on back before that this was originally a slave burial ground this was the burial ground of the body family the enslaved members of the uh of Plantation Farm of Bennett VR body and his wife Elizabeth body Ben as he was known he's known as being being body and his wife Elizabeth owned several hundred acres of land uh Northeast of Waverly Hall all of the area that is now known as The Melody Lake subdivision all the area that is now known as the Victoria Air Park area just north of town across what's now Georgia Highway 85 back in those days it was known as Flat Shoals Road you cross that into this area where we are now and it joined with the William Whitehead Plantation which was west of here and William Whitehead's daughter was uh men body's wife Elizabeth she was the daughter of William and Catherine Whitehead well after the Civil War Elizabeth Whitehead gave this piece of property which was already a barrel ground and it's mentioned in the Deeds to their Summit to their Plantation she gave this burial ground to the uh folks that want to form a church prior to that she had been very uh instrumental in helping to form a little black school they used what was known as Mount Zion Methodist Church for a Schoolhouse and that's where the first education for the young black children after the Civil War took place and they were later encouraged to build their own school and they built one just just west of excuse me east of Waverly Hall just over the top of County Line and it was called Mount mccatherine and that school stood for many years and then later when Waverly Hall was kind of organized into a little town the school the churches and all were moved into town so we're on the outskirts of Waverly Hall right here at the city limits which is just right over there a little ways and this is the former site of the Saint John Church The Story Goes that following the right at the end of the Civil War they had a battle in Columbus and as the rebel soldiers were scattering you know they were losing the battle so they scattered and they fanned out into the area and when they came out the Federal Road from Columbus to Waverly Hall they got to Waverly Hall and they found a home being ransacked by a couple of Union Soldiers well when the Union Soldiers saw these Rebels that came up they scattered they've they've hightailed it up the road Confederate soldiers chased them and somewhere near here they overtook the Yankee captain and it was my understanding through what is uh printed in uh Centennial edition of the Columbus Ledger inquiry newspaper that the Yankee Captain was from Ohio and they hit him with a saber and broke his neck well he died there on the scene they captured the others that were with him and took them away from here now you know Heaven only knows what became of those soldiers once they left here with them but he was buried near here and in 1945 the Waverly Hall women's women's Civic Club wrote a little uh history book of Waverly Hall and it was just reminisces of reminiscences of the local people at the time and they included a little story about the Yankee soldier who was killed here and buried near Saint John cemetery St John's Cemetery covers I'd say what four acres Maybe maybe five acres this is a this is a big Cemetery there are a lot of people buried here I'd say a couple hundred people this cemetery is actually still in use but this is uh supposedly where that Yankee Soldier was buried and it's my understanding that he was buried here kind of in secret to hide the the killing of him that's correct he was buried here so that no one would ever know where he was buried because not long after this was when Wilson's Raiders came through they had been through here once going to Columbus they came through here you know off and on they were a Detachment of of Sherman's Army and uh you know there were a lot of them that came through here sporadically and this little band that came through here on their own they were just robbing and pillaging anything that they could and the house that they were robbing at the time stood where the Methodist preacher's house is now the Memphis parsonage on the hill on Highway 208 right in the center of Waverly Hall and at the time it was the home of a uh state representative I believe from Mississippi last name was Singleton and Mr Singleton had brought his family here as refugees they had moved into the former home of Anderson Jones and his wife Susan Susan had died in 1861 so Anderson Jones apparently knew The Singletons and he allowed them to move into their house and that's where they were robbing the house when the rebel soldiers came along and caught him in the act and of course they fled they were chased down and attacked uh but anyway this Cemetery started out as the body family burial ground for all of the body slaves then it became body family descendants and then all the members of the church that was organized here so you have members of the body the witnesses the Chaney's or a large group of Oak beard here then we have later folks we've got the thomasons we've got the uh the dunbars and the culpeppers whiteheads are a lot of graves out in that area but right out in the middle of this cemetery is uh there used to be a well which was quite dangerous there weren't too many people that knew that well was here and it was just an uncurved open hole that was over you know covered over with vegetation so that still exists somewhere uh we'll see if we can find it let's go find the well so this is a really cool Cemetery uh like Dan said this is absolutely huge so I'll show you real quick this is the more modern part you see we have Graves here and then it goes out towards the road and at first glance you would assume that this would be the majority of the cemetery here where these graves are kind of well kept with a little road Ray running between yeah I will say that this cemetery is still in use uh it's landlocked you know it's it's busting it seems that you might say because all the land around is private property and the family that owns the land just over the fence has tried to prohibit anyone from burying onto their property and that's part of the problem here is no one can define a clear property line they say that someone came out in and defined a line one time and or they went by this old fence that's right here but no one really knows for sure but uh over the years this Cemetery it was a tradition and it still is that families would come and clean off this Cemetery once a year and that was the week before Mother's Day that was always a tradition the Saturday before Mother's Day and the week before that prior to Mother's Day they would always meet out here and I've even got a newspaper article that features Mr Joe Hamp he was a Waverly Hall resident and he would come out here and Joe worked really hard when he was able and he would come out here and clean off his parents lot and then he would clean off Graves of friends that didn't have family and so Joe would work out here sometimes two weeks and you passed by and you would see Joe with his little fires burning where he was burning trash and you know sticks and leaves and debris and uh one day Columbus Ledger Inquirer newspaper reporter passed by and saw Joe and he stopped and he made a picture of Joe out here and I have that newspaper article that was back in I forgot what the year was 1980 Something but anyway this uh you know as Time Marches On there are not as many people left to maintain the cemetery like it used to be there's still a few families that maintain plots out here once a year the traditional way there's some that you know there's just not any family left and there's some that just that just don't care unfortunately uh but this is a large cemetery and uh there are a lot more Graves back that way I would I think that the church stood right here where this newer section is this is where the church building was and if I remember correctly the well is out that direction there used to be a big oak tree right next to the well but I think the oak tree is gone now all right well we will head off that way and also probably see a lot more Graves as we dip off into the woods might know it would start raining even harder I thought that was one of those little photograph ones walk along this way look at that Dan yeah this is the older section of the cemetery is this a dryer spot it's not dry it's dry herb but it's not dry we may have to sit this one out here's one right there oh there's one right here that's an MTA yeah we'll have to it's interesting that's a Columbus Georgia um this is an MTA Stone which is Mosaic Templars of America which was a organization founded by freed slaves to help former slaves after the Civil War and there's another one that's nearby here the grave of Samantha street but they all have lodges on them Samantha streets is Mahone's Delight parlor which was a local Lodge that one is from Columbus let me get you freed up there hope you got caught all the way around this is the Mad Dash for the truck right here oh wow there's a grave right there and that was the day that Robert and Dan caught pneumonia I thought it had to be called to cash a pneumonia oh no you can catch pneumonia anytime oh well shoot oh all right so I think we are going to be rained out for this adventure Dan and I are still hiding in the truck here what you got there Dan I have this Columbus Ledger Inquirer Civil War Centennial Edition it is all about uh Chattahoochee Valley and what took place here during the Civil War and this has a story uh partly about the story of with the Union soldier who was this has the story in it now we actually do have the other book um in here history of Waverly Hall Georgia written in 1945 by the uh Junior Women's Club Waverly Hall Georgia okay this is from page eight of the history of Waverly Hall by the junior Woman's Club 1945. so it is well it tells about the Foxhole that the bird brothers were put in when they were little by their grandmother uh have you read that before I have okay I'll skip over that anyway it says there was much Looting of personal property by the invading hordes in spite of the efforts the citizens made to conceal their valuables there was consequently great resentment at the indignities to which the community was subjected as evidenced by the fact that at least one Yankee Soldier was killed and buried near the present Saint John Methodist Church Cemetery uh this is an interesting little book that was written at the time first-hand account Witnesses were still alive uh very interesting and this is the uh newspaper article about Mr Joe Hamp working at the cemetery this was in May of 1983 [Music] okay this was uh talking about the capture of Columbus and tells about there were other reports of Looting of course one of them said the federal Raiders began their departure from Columbus Tuesday morning April the 18th with as much of the portable possessions of the citizens as they could carry off General Wilson according to one took his leave in a carriage belonging to Mr James C cook and and in Scots in the same vehicle were said to be two of The Cook's family servants rigged up in high style enclosed belonging to their former owners the troops did the same in the midst of burning and looting Confederate forces offered only piecemeal resistance their defense having disintegrated and lost all semblance of organization and Order some of the uncaptured rebels made isolated attacks on the federal Raiders one band of rebels overtook a Yankee captain from Ohio catching them in the act of robbing the house of Congressman Singleton of Mississippi whose family had come to Georgia as refugees seeing the Rebels the Yanks rode off at Breakneck speed one Rebel overtook the captain and with one Blow from his saber broke the captain's neck the others surrendered and then it goes on to list other caps other Confederates who managed to escape Columbus among them was Colonel Leon van zinken Private John F Benton and uh others so at some point the uh someone managed to interview someone who knew something about this by cities captured has continued from page seven see if it gives credit to who wrote that looks like there's some pages missing from page six to page 11. foreign

Channel: Sidestep: Adventures Into History

Views: 76,124

Keywords: civil war, civil war trust, civil war graves, graves, civil war history, civil war cemetery, american civil war, war, civil war documentary, haunted civil war cemetery, civil, civil war veterans, civil war ghost, us civil war, civil war ghosts, the civil war, civil war photgraphy, catalonia mass graves: victims of civil war exhumed, civil war dead, civil war 2013, spanish civil war era, civil war soldier, haunted civil war, spanish civil war, civil war archaeology

Id: PTpCbsQH7Ww

Length: 20min 36sec (1236 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 19 2023