Documenting the Details

Tombstone Tuesday – Unknown Union Soldier Buried in Heard County, Georgia

An unknown Union soldier is buried in Adamson Cemetery in Heard County, Georgia. This location along the central Alabama and Georgia border was the heart of the Confederacy. Even though the sons of this area were off fighting for the other side, this soldier was given a proper burial by a local resident. See the post “A Documented Source Isn’t Always A Valid Source” from yesterday for more about this story.

The poem inscribed on these concrete slabs was written by Nathaniel Rufus Adamson. Adamson was a local resident but was only 10 years old when the soldier died so the poem had to have been written and added some years later.
  
Transcription:

This dying man his friends had fled
Left to his foes not a word he said

Away from home away from friends
And all that heart holds dear
A federal soldier buried here
No earthly friend was near

His lips were closed his body frale [sic]
His dying groans and his face was pale

Away from home away from friends
All all that heart holds dear
A federal soldier buried here
No earthly friend was near

The clothes he wore blue uniform
His body showed not a mark of harm
 
Away from home away from friends
And all that heart holds dear
A federal soldier buried here
No earthly friend was near
 
His death occurred from unknown cause
Had a deadly stroke and fell from a horse
 
Away from home away from friends
And all that heart holds dear
A federal soldier buried here

 

No earthly friend was near
 
His coffin rough and loosly [sic] laid
Of scraps of plank and they had no nails
 
Away from home away from friends
And all that heart holds dear
A federal soldier buried here
No earthly friend was near
 
The plank was off a nearby barn
Where federals robbed of its wheat and corn
 
Chorus
N. R. Adamson
 
At the bottom of the left slab is also inscribed:
McCook’s Raid
July 31, 1864

Linda F. McCauley

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