Memorial Service Honors Confederate Prisoners

Scotland, MD - 11/7/2011
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By Dick Myers

Guest speaker Adbur Haymes

In the midst of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, one of war’s many dark spots was remembered Saturday in St. Mary’s County. More than 4,000 Confederate soldiers died at Pt. Lookout prisoner of war camp between 1863 and 1865 of the 50,000 soldiers held there. A memorial service in their memory was held at the National Confederate Cemetery in Scotland just north of the camp which is now part of Pt. Lookout State Park.

The event was hosted by Captain Vincent Camalier, Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Camp #1359 and the newly formed Southern Maryland Chapter #48, Order of the Confederate Rose, Private Jane Perkins.

Camp Commander Larry Messick welcomed everyone attending the event on the blustery day. Many of the attendees were dressed in re-enactor costumes. During the presentation of colors re-enactors representing a number of units surrounded the base of the Confederate monument.

Newly appointed Baltimore National Cemetery Superintendent Dr. Martha Rankin was on her first visit to Pt. Lookout. She said the area evoked different responses from different people, but she noted, “I can’t imagine anyone visiting here and not being moved. We share the inability to wrap our minds around the number of soldiers killed and wounded in the Civil War.” She added that sites such as Pt. Lookout are, “places for future generations to learn from.”

Guest speaker was Adbur Haymes, director of operations at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond and a retired U.S. Army Sgt. Major. Haymes, an African-American and an unabashed southerner, said “I say y’all and drink sweat tea.” He added he brought greeting from Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

Haymes said of those who wound up at Pt. Lookout, “They were proud soldiers who did their duty following the orders of their president, Jefferson Davis and following the orders of their general, Robert E. Lee.”

Haymes spoke lovingly of Gen. Lee and told how he agonized about joining the Confederacy. He told of leaving Arlington House after making that decision, never to return. He told of how soldiers were buried on the front lawn of Arlington House. Lee’s son filed suit in the 1890’s to regain control of their ancestral home and won that suit in the U.S. Supreme Court. The family was given the option to disinter the bodies, but realized that Gen. Lee would have not wanted that. Instead they sold the property to the U.S. for what is now Arlington National Cemetery.

Haymes called both Davis and Lee great men and said he is on a mission to rehabilitate the legacy of the president of the Confederacy.

Commander of the Southern Maryland Chapter #48, Order of the Confederate Rose Monie Harper told the story of Private Jane Perkins, after whom the chapter is named. She and her brother immigrated to America after the Irish Rebellion, ended up in Massachusetts, where they were not welcome and eventually settled in Virginia where she became a school teacher.

Jane’s brother enlisted in the Army of Northern Virginia and she joined him, first incognito as a man. She was captured during a battle in Hanover, VA and sent to Pt. Lookout, where she was the only woman. She was strip-searched upon arrival and she gave birth to a son while there (father unknown).

Buck-Thompson described a feisty woman who told her captors, “I can straddle a horse, I can jump a fence and I can kill a Yankee.” After being sent to another prison her son was kept at Pt. Lookout and both of their ultimate fates remain a mystery today.

During the ceremony the Pledge of Allegiance was recited and the National Anthem performed, the Salute to the Confederate Flag was also recited and Dixie performed. Maryland My Maryland, with its words “Despot’s Heel is on Our Shore” was also performed by musician Wally Ivanov. Wreaths were laid at the monument from several organizations.

Many of the re-enactors camped at the park on Friday evening.