A reminder of the War
My aunt and uncle were cleaning out an old home in Dacula and came across a list which they gave to my parents. It was an old typed list of Confederate soldiers buried at Ebenezer Church in Harbins. Many of the names were familiar ones to the community. It also had some notes about the various units that men from the area served in during the war. I saw the 42nd Georgia and the name Freeman which reminded me of a moment from a few years back. While traveling for work I was in Salisbury, North Carolina. Salisbury is an old town. It was a stop on the Great Wagon Road when that area was still part of the British Empire. The town was fought over during the revolution and General Greene got a great deal of help from one of the local Patriots. During the War between the States it was a vital supply center and the home to a POW camp. In more recent times Cheerwine has been the main feature of the city. It was while waiting for track time at work in this town that I stumbled across the Old Lutheran Cemetery. In that burying ground are a number of leading town citizens and on the edge a scattering of Confederate soldiers. One of those soldiers was Private James Freeman, Company B, 42nd Georgia.
James was born in 1833 in Gwinnett county and when the war erupted he joined the 42nd Georgia leaving his wife and one year old daughter behind on May 12, 1862. The 1862 enlistment date reflects a bit of Gwinnett’s hesitancy in the war effort as the county was not as firebrand as other areas of the state. He was in the southern and western theaters of the war and was captured at Vicksburg. After his parole at Vicksburg he cam home for 6 months. After that his record goes dark for a while. The 42nd, as a unit, was engaged in the Atlanta Campaign and after the Confederate Army of Tennessee was decimated by the leadership of John Bell Hood, they moved east and were to face Sherman in the Carolinas at the close of the war. That’s where James Freeman comes back in.
In the old Lutheran Cemetery he is buried. The last entry of his service record reads “General Hospital Number 10, Salisbury, NC. Disease “ VS Right Breast. Died March 17, 1865.” Salisbury was the last stop for many. Hospitals were not capable of the best treatment during the war and whatever the details are we many never know. After James passed, he was interred at the cemetery closest to the hospital. His daughter went on to grown up and got married. She had 8 children and so his line continues to this day.
I cannot imagine the suffering felt by any of the citizens of this nation at that time; Weather as slaves or freeman, as soldiers or citizens, as wounded or dying, as fighters or prisoners. We should be beyond thankful for the sacrifices of prior generation. We live in the most prosperous time of written history in a land of Freedom. Not a perfect land, but a pretty good one…It would do us well to remember that often.
