Statement presented by Lee Stone at Mount Sinai Day of Remembrance
Living in Loudoun County, Virginia, one is constantly surrounded by reminders, large and small, of the Civil War. Several years ago I happened across an article in a small local newspaper, the “Middleburg Eccentric,” about a tiny abandoned cemetery in Loudoun County. The article described the cemetery as next to the site of an African-American house of worship, no longer extant, called Mount Sinai Church. According to the article, in that cemetery was the gravesite of a Civil War veteran, his grave marker lying flat on the ground.
The site mentioned by the newspaper was at the intersection of Mountain Road with Britain Road in rural northwestern Loudoun. To find it, one must leave behind the frenetic towns and highways of our modern world and return to a simpler, slower rural past. The chapel, built sometime after the Civil War, had long ago burned to the ground, its place marked now only by a few foundation stones. The cemetery site had been cleared of brush, apparently by the local landowner. There were perhaps a scant dozen or so grave markers still readable. The grave marker I sought proved to be a standard Civil-War-era gravestone issued by the US War Department to the surviving families of veterans, without cost to them, in the years following the war. The stone identified the veteran buried there as Sam’l (Samuel) B Timbers, private of Company H of the 29th US Colored Infantry. And yes, the stone was indeed lying flat on the surface, along a hedgerow marking the boundary of the old churchyard.
One evening not too long after my effort to track down Sam Timbers’ grave marker, based on that brief story in the ‘Eccentric’, I was drinking a mug of ale at the bar of my favorite restaurant, the Hunters Head Tavern in Upperville, VA. I no longer remember how we got into conversation, but it quickly became clear that the man on the stool next to me was as fascinated by local Civil War history as I was. I found myself casually describing to him my experience finding Timbers’ gravesite. I was shocked almost beyond words by his next contribution to our discussion. He said, “My name is Dan Morrow; I’m the publisher of the ‘Eccentric’, and I wrote that story!” He proffered a business card, and I took it home.
Because I am a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, it was my duty to Samuel Timbers to mark his gravesite with a small US flag. I returned each year around the time of Memorial Day to check if the flag was still in place. If it was not, I would place a fresh flag at his gravesite. After all, he was a Union veteran, and deserved at least this small commemoration.
One day a couple years later, at a ceremony in another cemetery, I happened to mention the issue with Timbers’ grave marker to a personal friend. Ken Fleming is well-known in Loudoun County for his work in cemeteries, and in particular veterans’ gravesites. Ken is also quite active in the Clinton Hatcher Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, so I did not expect him to take much interest in a gravesite from the “other side.” Besides, neither of us then knew if Samuel Timbers had descendants or where they might be.
Imagine my astonishment then, when I ran into Ken at a later event, and he told me that, using research by his friend Raleigh Boaze, he had obtained permission from the landowner, marked out Timbers’ gravesite, and reset that pesky grave marker! Ken told me that he believes all military veterans’ gravesites should receive honorable treatment, without regard to “what war” or “which side.” I believe that we, the Sons of Union Veterans, owe these members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans our gratitude for their care for one of “ours.”
I believe further that Ken Fleming’s unselfish act of kindness clearly demonstrates the values we as Americans should hold, and the attitudes we ought to express toward one another, without regard to “North” or “South,” “Black” or “White,” creed or political beliefs. Especially during this time of political stress, it seems to me we would do well to follow Ken’s example.
I went home, wrote up a shorter version of the story you are reading, and sent it to Dan Morrow. He published it, without changing as much as a comma, in the next edition of the “Eccentric.”
To this day I shake my head in disbelief at the chain of events that led to the refurbishment of Sam Timbers’ gravesite, more than 100 years after his burial in that tiny, now disused, churchyard. Dan Morrow needed to write a story that found its way to me, the dedicated Civil War researcher with a special penchant for tracking down Civil War gravesites. I did not live in or near Middleburg, seldom even went down that way, and had no reason to seek out Middleburg’s newspaper. The ‘Eccentric’ was delivered to western Loudoun mailboxes, including mine, for only about a year. That year needed to include the edition bearing that brief story, and I needed to read it, and act on it. I needed to stop by a restaurant I did not visit weekly, or even monthly, on the same evening Dan Morrow happened to be at that same place. We needed to fall into casual conversation that evening, and discover our “hidden” connection. I needed to run into my friend Ken Fleming later on, and think to mention this grave marker, in an abandoned cemetery, flat on the ground. He needed to take it up as a task worth doing, and find the research help that made it happen.
How could such a thing ever have come to pass? Could we possibly imagine that Private Samuel B Timbers, from beyond that Barrier that divides us, the living, from those who have died, “intervened” in some mysterious way to see that his gravesite got the respect it, and he, deserve? No, you say, that would be my imagination running wild, and most would agree with you. Still….
(Lee D. Stone is a Past Departmental Commander, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW}, and a member of the Lincoln-Cushing Camp in the District of Columbia.)