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| Photo by Molly Thacker |
A nice lady by the name Molly Thacker dropped into Buzzy’s Country Store the other day. She informed me that she had just been to the Monument where she found her Great, Great, Great Grandfather McGalliard’s name on it. I asked her how she knew he was there and she said she had found it on Ancestry.com.
Molly’s visit marked my second interaction Monument-wise in the past week. A lady called me last week seeking info on a cemetery for black soldiers buried across the road from the Monument. The lady said that they had found evidence that there was a grave yard nearby and they were seeking to contact property owners to discuss doing more research in the area. I gave her a couple points of contact.
Through the years I have heard different accounts that there were as many as five prison-connected graveyards in the Pt. Lookout area at one time or another (click here). I remember as a kid playing in the woods adjacent to Camp Brown, and seeing a graveyard there with a statue of a Confederate soldier atop a grave site. I asked someone about it recently and they said that the statue was no longer there and that it has been gone for several years.
There is also some question/controversy as to just how many prisoners died at Pt. Lookout. A couple summers ago I had 3 visitors from Montgomery, Alabama in Buzzy’s seeking information on the grave sites and stating that there had to be more sites than what has been officially recognized. They had been down to the State Park and weren’t too pleased with the information they had received and left there a little disappointed. When I told them about the statue of the Confederate soldier in the graveyard adjacent Camp Brown, they said that confirmed what they suspected. Here is another account of death totals being under reported:
So when someone like Molly is successful in tracking down her ancestor it makes you appreciate that some effort was given to identify many of the prisoners who died at Pt. Lookout. However, as in the case of my Alabama visitors to the Store, it also appears that more work needs to be done on this grave matter.