News-Info-Alerts

Re: Point Lookout POW Cemetery

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: May 25, 2002

For many of us, the Stars and Stripes is the only flag we will ever salute or die for. However, during one of the bleakest moments in American history, the Confederate Battle Flag flew above the heads of hundreds of thousands of CSA men, women and children from the South, who were willing to die for it.

And many, many did.

Many died as POWs in a place called Point Lookout, Maryland. Over 52,000 were held as POWs with more than 14,000 dying in captivity. It is the ONLY veteran's cememtery in the US that exclusively has Confederate war dead, with all Union war dead disinterred and reburied in Arlington.

For years the descendants of these Southern POWs have trekked to the cemetery at Point Lookout to pay their respects and honor their dead. Let us not forget that the first song written about Memorial Day, then known as Decoration Day, was the Hymn "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead".

History aside, we must respect the sacrifice made by these men and women who laid down their lives for their beliefs and 'their' vision of America.

Beginning in 1998, the Confederate Battle Flag, which had flown over the POW cemetery, was outlawed by the Veterans Administration. In other words, the very flag for which so many fought and died, and were buried under, is now forbidden.

For more on the Point Lookout Cemetery, the POWs and the battle to fly the Confederate Flag, please visit -

http://members.tripod.com/~PLPOW/