The American Civil War was like no other war we have fought. It was a conflict that tested whether our nation would last as the United States, if our liberty was for all Americans, if our rights were to be protected by the law and extended to all people.
To answer those questions, more American soldiers died than in any other war in our history. 620,000 men died in the Civil War. That was 2 percent of the U.S. population at that time.
To get a comparison, if 2 percent of the U.S. population died in the next four years, that would be 6.5 million people – or nearly everyone in the state of Indiana! Those war deaths were more than the sum total of American fatalities in the seven wars surrounding it: the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, and the Korean War.
After the war ended, many groups sought to both honor the war dead and recognize the veterans who had returned home. On a national scale, places like Arlington National Cemetery were opened for military burials. Most battlefield sites also opened military cemeteries where Union soldiers killed in action were reinterred.
In Noblesville, Crownland Cemetery opened in 1867. On July 4, 1868, the Civil War Monument was dedicated there. It honored all the heroes of Hamilton County who volunteered for service during the war.
If you walk around Crownland Cemetery, you might also notice some other tributes to the Civil War dead. A total of 277 soldiers from Hamilton County were killed during the war. They are buried in other states. When a soldier was killed during the war, they were typically buried in haste where they fell on the battlefield. Some were buried in mass graves. After the war, these bodies were disinterred and buried in a military cemetery.
The passage of time made it impossible to identify every soldier. For instance, Antietam National Battlefield Cemetery contains the remains of over 4,000 Union soldiers – many were Hoosiers. Only 38 percent were identified.
Veterans’ groups led the effort to honor their fallen colleagues. Crownland has a monument to Unknown Soldiers in the Civil War Soldiers’ Lot. This was funded by the Lookout Women’s Relief Corps, Number 72, an auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The GAR was the largest Union Veterans’ fraternity in the nation. The monument is not a grave marker, but rather a monument to the boys who did not come home and were not identified on the battlefield.
This monument to the unknown soldiers of the Civil War in Noblesville’s Crownland Cemetery was funded by the Lookout Women’s Relief Corps No. 72, an auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic. (Photo provided)
One other item in the Soldiers’ Lot that cannot be missed is the large Parrott Rifled Cannon. The cannon was originally on the Hamilton County Courthouse lawn until 1940. That’s when it was moved to the Soldier’s Lot to rest next to the graves of Civil War veterans. But is it an authentic Civil War artillery piece? If it wasn’t moved to the cemetery until 75 years after the war, might it belong to some other era? It is indeed an authentic Civil War cannon, manufactured in Cold Spring, N.Y., in 1862.
The Parrott Rifled Cannon in the Soldier’s Lot at Crownland Cemetery is a genuine Civil War-era cannon, manufactured in 1862 in Cold Spring, N.Y. (Photo provided)
I will be leading the Crownland Cemetery Civil War Veterans Walking Tour at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 11 – Veterans Day. I will be talking about the cannon, other monuments and markers related to our Civil War heritage in Hamilton County and Indiana. The event is free, but you need to register.
If you are looking for a unique way to honor our veterans and learn about the history of our past, I encourage you to attend. For more information, go to CivilWarVeteransWalkingTour.com.