The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-08-25
ANArIoNAL CEMETERY.
ooNFBpERArEs AND NEGRO CHILDREN
BURIED AND PAID FOR AS FEDERAL
SOLDIERS,
How the Yankee speoRalates In the Bones
or the Dcad-Mrs. Peters $4,000 Moau
nen&-What IL Coex.

The following description Of the National
Cemetery at Beaufort. s. O., is written by
James R. Randall, ESQ.,, the editor OF the Au-
gust Constitutioaalist, W6o has just returned
from q summer excursion to Port Royal Island:
So much for necessary digression. Let US
return to our stage coach, which bas all the
while been struggling through the heavy
roads that Iced into Beaufort. wltnm lew
rather leo. weary and the landscape did not, by
any means. t:Hy by" as the romancers say. As
wa reached the top Of high bill just over
against Beaufort, the mules halted. The sun
was dipping westward and below as lay the
hamlet, still brave, in spite OF the wal. .hoof,
with stately buildings and sent-tropical foliage.
Turning, aside from this, our attention was
attracted by an immense enclosure. "That, I"
said our guide, is "tbe National Cemetery.
'sIhere's many chap buried there
that is, many pieces of chaps. Ten thous-
and. il there's one." We drove little
nearer and looked over twenty acres OF deaths
harvesting. The ground everywhere was lite
rally white with slrow-storn OF tombstones:
While we stood between the cemetery gate
and the keepers lodge, our. guide volun-
teered some curious and sepuhhra mforma-
ton, Said he: 81 tell you, gents, there is
many boy in blue there, and then again,
there are some chaps ia that placs VINO
ought to grin in their cofins tor being there.
Chow 3d." We asked. why. ne replied %
fellow got $40 head for bringing them in:
/ tell You some chaps were brought IN that
the Yanks hadn't declared dividends on-a
good many grey jackets, for instance. But
the sfrangeat tricks we're these: Ihey dug
up men and then divided them. 30 that a ten
Was made to pay Eve hundred per cent: 1t
was cute thing-you bet; and 1should not
wonder il some bummer's skull was at that
gate and his big toe clean halt mile away
down in yondsr corner" OF course, We were
vastly entertained by this queer commentary;
but more awful revelations were behind. Our
driver continued. "They did worse than that.
They dug up two nigger children out OF our
graveyard, and, swear, sirs, to my certain
knowledge, those picaninnies are buried yon-
der as unknown boys in blue. 7 reckon they
are among the infaptryl" We asked this abso-
lutte man whose monument it was that rose
above the common graves around. He knew
all about it, and thus CALCULATED: "Oh, that's
Mrs. Potter's memorial ponument. know all
in the North to build that fgure-head, and it
cost $500. Some people call the cemetery Pot
ter's Field; bat such fellows, you know, are un-
reconstructed" AS he concluded, the whip
lash took the doing mules by surprise, and
they began to trudge on lazly. At last, we
moved through the melancholy outlying boun-
daries and entered.
OF this same monument in Potter's Field
correspondent of the New York Tribune writes
as follows:
Having recently visited the National Gene
terry at Beaufort, South Carolina, 1 wish in this
season OF remembering the graves OF our SOL
diers, to tell the friends OF those who died ip
and around Charleston. Fort Wagner and
other places near, that their bodies have been
removed to the cemetery at Beaufort, and
monument of Northern granite, to their honor
and memory, has been erected through the in
struneptality Of Mrs. L. T. Potter, OF Charles
ton, Bearing this inscription
''16MoRrAIITY
Hundreds ts Sl Defender.
Of
American Liberty
Ag.tnst the Great
Rebellion"
There is also in this cemetery marble
tablet. on which are inscribed names from
nearly every State in the Union, but largely
from Massachusetts, where the monument
was made, Of soldiers whom Mrs. Potter a9d
her husband had personally served. They de-
voted their time and means In most heroic
manner, OTTER hazardiug their lives to serve
the suffering. She promised them that alter
the wal, was over she would erect fitting
monument to their memory; but the war con-
tinued 80 long, her means were greatly ex-.
hausted, and she received $500 from the Rev.
q. w. Beecher's church to aid her IN the work,
which was accomplished under difficulties.
The monument was intended for Charleston,
but government requested that it should be
placed in the National Cemetery at Beaufort.