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day was bright, cheerful and clear, the oratory was stirring, and the huge crowd present were in thorough sympathy with the sentiment of the occasion. * * * *
In ante-bellum days, the Winchester cemetery began about three squares from Main street, and covered a comparatively small area.
So many were the engagements in the valley, and so many were the dead for whom Winchester cared, that beginning at the limits of the old graveyard, a new cemetery was begun and aptly called after Stonewall Jackson, under whose command most of the dead had fought.
This is possibly the only distinct Confederate national cemetery.
The Federal national cemetery adjoins it on the left.
In the precincts of Stonewall Jackson cemetery the people of Winchester gathered and placed all the known Confederate dead, locating the graves by States.
The unknown, numbering nearly seven hundred, were placed together, and now a splendid monument marks the resting place of these unknown heroes.
Many of the graves of the known, are still surmounted with the wooden headboards placed there when they died, but Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and Louisiana have removed these crumbling memorials and replaced them with marble stones, which will be everlasting.
These four States have likewise erected monuments to their dead.
The Louisiana monument which was unveiled on the 4th of July, is a beautiful granite shaft planted on a slight eminence in one of the prettiest part of the soldiers' cemetery.
The specifications called for Georgia granite, with a total height of eighteen feet, the base being four feet three inches square, the second base, the die, the cap and the plinth each being proportionately smaller, until the shaft is one foot three inches square, and eleven feet high.
The design was graceful, chaste, and of proper soldierly simplicity.
On the first base are the large letters, ‘C. S. A.’
The second base bears the word ‘Louisiana,’ and the cap above the highly polished die shows the coat of arms of the State.
The inscriptions are as follows:
‘To the soldiers of Louisiana who died for the South in the Valley Campaign, this monument has been erected in memory of their noble daring and heroic endurance in their country's cause.’
On the right side: Sleep in peace with kindred ashes,
Of the noble and the true;
Hands that never failed their country,
Hearts that never baseness knew.
Of the noble and the true;
Hands that never failed their country,
Hearts that never baseness knew.
