Civil War re-enactors hold reburial for Confederates, child

By BRUCE SMITH

The Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C. --- In a somber step back in time, hundreds of Civil War re-enactors staged a funeral for 22 Confederate fighting men and one child who died more than 130 years ago.

As drums sounded a slow, mournful cadence, the remains --- in small wooden coffins draped in Confederate flags --- were carried on seven caissons drawn by horses and mules.

About 300 re-enactors dressed in Confederate gray, in butternut and a few in Union blue, marched in a funeral cortege Friday. About two dozen women, dressed in black with hoop skirts, also walked in the funeral train.

The funeral comes as the state struggles with a dispute about the Confederate battle flag flying over the Statehouse in Columbia.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is calling for a tourism boycott of the state beginning Jan. 1 unless the banner is taken down. Dozens of groups already have canceled meetings in the state since the controversy began.

South Carolina is the only state to fly the banner above its Capitol. Its opponents maintain the banner is a symbol of racism and slavery. Supporters say it represents Southern heritage.

Organizers said the Confederate funeral was the largest in South Carolina in more than a century. The bodies of 86 South Carolinians who died at Gettysburg were brought back in 1871.

"These 22 men and this child reach out to us in the eternity of God," the Rev. C. Lynn Bailey, pastor of St. Johannes Evangelical Lutheran Church told about 1,500 people at the burial.

The remains were recovered earlier this year during an archeological dig at The Citadel's Johnson Hagood Stadium, built over an old mariners graveyard. The stadium was erected in 1948, but the dead never were moved because of a clerical error.

The child whose remains were found is believed to be the child of one of the Confederates.

Friday's funeral procession wound four miles from Charleston's historic district to Magnolia Cemetery on the outskirts of town.

At the cemetery, the coffins were lowered into a common trench.

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