Re: Dozen Generals Dedicated Memorial to Civil War DICs

Date: June 24, 2004

"Confederate generals honored in 1895

Vying for newspaper headlines during the trouble with the Cree in June 1895 was the arrival of a group of visitors -- more than a dozen former Confederate army generals.

The former Confederate officers were en route home from Chicago where they had participated in the dedication of a memorial to Confederates who died in Union-controlled prisoner of war camps in the Chicago area.

Plans had been made to honor the former generals in Cincinnati, and while there they also accepted an invitation from former Gen. John C. Underwood, then living in Covington, to attend a reception in their honor in Northern Kentucky.

The generals included James Longstreet, Fitzhugh Lee, Marcus Joseph Wright, Matthew Calbraith Butler, Lunsford Lindsay Lomax, Henry Heth, H. Kyd Douglas, Eppa Hunton and Fayette Hewitt. An assortment of colonels, captains and lieutenants also were with the group.

The group stayed in the Grand Hotel in Cincinnati. They were honored at Cincinnati City Hall and toured the Cincinnati Art Museum.

In Northern Kentucky, many of the former soldiers accepted an invitation from Col. Melvin Cochran to tour the Fort Thomas Military Post where the troops were reviewed.

In Covington, a special memorial service for Confederate dead was held in Linden Grove Cemetery where several Confederates are buried.

Covington resident James Orr, a former Confederate colonel, oversaw the ceremonies, which consisted mainly of Union veterans from the Garfield Post of the Grand Army of the Republic. A band played, songs were sung,and flowers were placed on the graves.

©2001 The Cincinnati Post, an E.W. Scripps newspaper"