This was a BIG mistake.

[Gary Morgan]

Anyone who knows the story of the Andersonville Raiders knows that the other prisoners held them in such contempt that they buried them a short distance away from the other prisoners, and that their graves are not given flags on Memorial Day nor wreaths at Christmas. Their graves have no numbers because they are not counted among the "honored" dead. I'm sure lots of you have photographs of the graves that look something like this:

Well, here's what they look like now....

The National Cemetery has started putting in new burials around the raiders' graves, which makes ZERO sense to me, since there are lots of other still open spaces that they could have placed these burials (the other side of the road, for example, has an open strip of similar size with NO burials on it, as you can see in the background.)

I am heartsick about this. I feel like they are disrespecting both the wishes of the men who were held prisoner there, and, to a lesser extent, the men who are laid to rest near these scoundrels. They also just messed up one of the most photographed scenes by visitors to Andersonville National Cemetery because you can no longer easily get a photo of how the raiders were buried in isolation. Whoever decided to put the new internments here clearly did not understand the gravity of the decision. I am not even sure who to complain to about it.

Any thoughts?

Gary

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[Sheltowee]

Whoa...... I share your outrage. We should start with Georgia's senators.
Went to the cemetery with my family during the Carter presidency- we were all very impressed. I have not been back since, but my parents have. They say the site has completely changed. Apparently the NPS tries to pull in all POW/MIA from all wars, and the tragic story has lost some of the original impact.
In their words- "they ruined Andersonville".

 

[Fairfield]

It's been over 150 years now. History has been written and the moving hand has moved on. They made a bad decision and they paid for it: where is it written that some crimes ought to be revisited in perpetuity?