Confederate group wants to upgrade Oakwood graves

Carolyn Johnson's search for her great-great-grandfather ended in Richmond's Oakwood Cemetery last August with a tinge of disappointment.

A small, block-shaped stone marked the grave of Confederate soldier Austin Brown of the North Carolina 3rd Artillery. He was identified only by an engraved numeral seven.

Johnson said the numbered marker is striking when compared with the handsome headstone of another ancestor who died in the Civil War. Her great-great-uncle served the Union Army and was buried at the Annapolis National Cemetery in Maryland.

"I think it's a terrible tragedy," Johnson said of the markers at Oakwood, most of which mark graves in which three soldiers are buried.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to work with descendants such as Johnson to provide more honorable tributes to the 17,000 Confederate soldiers buried there.

But to do so, the heritage group first must strike a deal with Mayor Dwight C. Jones.

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The city owns the cemetery, having set aside a 7½-acre lot in what is now known as the East End in August 1861 to bury Confederates after the Battle of First Manassas.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is proposing an agreement that would allow its members to maintain the graves in the Confederate section and gradually to install upright headstones. The group also wants to upgrade the grounds, including the Soldier's Monument and fencing.

The federally approved headstones would be the same size -- 26 inches above ground -- as the painted wood markers that stood from 1867 to 1887 before they deteriorated and were removed, said F. Lee Hart III, chairman of the Oakwood Restoration Committee of the group's Virginia Division.

In 1901, the state put in the small, numbered markers in what was supposed to be a short-term measure to maintain records, he said.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans said an agreement with the city would mirror ones allowing other groups official access to its cemeteries. The move also is estimated to save taxpayers about $25,000 on annual property upkeep.

"We intend to make this a place that the city of Richmond can be proud of, that we can be proud of, that people all over the country who have family buried here can be proud of," Hart said.

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Group leaders said they have been aggressively pursuing an agreement with the city for about six years and suspect their efforts have stalled as a result of some officials' discomfort working with a group associated with the Confederacy and its support of slavery.

However, Hart and others see encouraging signs from the Jones administration.

"We are actively looking to see what our options are," said Suzette Denslow, the mayor's chief of staff. "We are receptive to the idea and just trying to make sure it works."

One concern, she said, is what would happen to the existing markers. Hart said all would be maintained and placed flush against new headstones.

He added that the small markers often get bumped and chipped by city mowers and that some have been retrieved from nearby woods.

So far, 12,000 of the 17,000 soldiers at Oakwood have been identified, Hart said. Under the group's plan, the graves of unidentified soldiers would receive headstones marking them as unknown.

"Is it better to do nothing, or is it better to bring the honor and dignity as best you can?" he asked.

Over the years, upright headstones have been placed on a few Confederate graves at Oakwood despite what Hart describes as a policy sometimes cited by city officials as prohibiting such monuments.

One of those markers says it was erected after a man searched 50 years to find the resting place of his brother, who died at age 19 after being wounded at the Battle of Gaines' Mill in June 1862.

"All we want to do is mark American graves," said B. Frank Earnest Sr., a former Virginia Division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a veteran of the Vietnam War. "You give dignity to soldiers."

Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones@timesdispatch.com.