CMP Inc. Update
January 10, 2023
Happy New Year and Good Evening Descendants of Point Lookout Prisoners of War and Friends of Confederate Memorial Park Inc.,
We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. Confederate Memorial Park was decorated for Christmas in November and looked beautiful for the Holiday season.
We have had some challenging times in the last couple of months. Jim's farmhouse burnt down the evening before Thanksgiving. All of CMP Inc. records were safe at Christina's house. This year has been a little rough. Both Christina's parents were diagnosed with cancer. Christina's Mom is doing okay. Sadly, Christina's "Pa" passed away on December 4th. He was a huge supporter and contributor of the Confederate Memorial Park and would visit at least once a week. He made many things like the birdhouses, wooden buckets, Adirondack chairs and butter churns we exchange for donations to support CMP. He also made the Star of Bethlehem light we set up during the holidays. We would like to thank Roslyn, Bill, TJ, and Shawn for helping us out at CMP during the last few months when we were unable. And a Big Thank You to Shawn for fixing The Star of Bethlehem light so it would shine bright before Pa's funeral.
We would also like to welcome our newest CMP Inc. Board members, Rose Kenney, Terry Klima, Eric Pfeiffer, Clarence Woods and Rob Long. We know you all will be a huge asset to CMP Inc. We would like to welcome all our newest members of Descendants of Point Lookout Prisoners of War and Friends of Confederate Memorial Park Inc. Some attendees at the Point Lookout Memorial Service printed their names to become members, however they did not include their email address. If you know anyone who is not receiving our updates, please let them know to contact us.
A couple of days after The Point Lookout Memorial, we finally received the two orders of memorial brick orders consisting of 30 memorial bricks we had been waiting almost a year for, from our supplier. Hopefully, everyone that ordered these Memorial Bricks received an email and picture from Steve DeFreytas; historian/brick coordinator. We were honored to install them at Confederate Memorial Park. We just wished that they were delivered before the Memorial Service. We presently have 10 memorial brick orders and we will be submitting the order to our supplier shortly. If anyone has been waiting to submit their order now would be a good time to send in your memorial brick order. Hopefully, this order will not take as long as last year. Thank you, Steve, for coordinating and confirming all our ancestor's memorial bricks. Say a prayer for Steve, he is recovering from knee replacement surgery! We hope your recovery is quick, Steve!
For the last several years we have been sparring with the State of Maryland, State Highway Administration (SHA) with the point lookout road widening project of route 5. Incidences that took place during the project will never be resolved. We will try to make this brief however it is complex and maybe some things will be hard to comprehend however we will try our best.
For years we have been researching the cemeteries at Point Lookout. Thank you to Bob and Monie Harper for helping us go through hours of documents, when we found the burial books of Point Lookout years ago and things just did not make sense.
We had permission from the St. Mary's Historical Society director Susan Wolfe at the time, to add an addendum or write a supplement to Edwin Beitzell's Book "Point Lookout Prison Camp for Confederates" because Mr. Beitzell had the incorrect information about the cemeteries, dates of re interments and the dedication place of The Maryland Confederate Monument. In researching, we discovered that one of the cemeteries was never completely exhumed by the State of Maryland or even the US Government. This cemetery is two and a quarter acre and consists of a Confederate cemetery that was consolidated with the smallpox cemetery at Point Lookout. The smallpox cemetery consisted of everyone that died at the smallpox hospital not necessarily of smallpox. In the 1930's when the State of Maryland constructed route 5 down to the tip of point lookout they traversed through this cemetery. Human remains were found and reinterred in a twenty-by-twenty pit in back of the Point Lookout Confederate Federal Monument within the cemetery grounds. (Not beyond the fence.) However only the remains on the east side of the newly constructed road in the 1930s were removed. On that side, the east side of the road, the cemetery consisted of only approximately one eighth of an acre leaving approximately two acres untouched on the west side of the cemetery. Further on the east side was another confederate cemetery "Tanner Creek cemetery" which was the cemetery most documented in which was exhumed in the 1870's and 1930's and where the Maryland Confederate Monument was re-erected for 28 years until it was moved to where it is now at The Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery in 1938. The Maryland Confederate Monument was not dedicated at the Tanner Creek cemetery in 1876 as Edwin Beitzell states in his book. It was dedicated on July 4th, 1876 where the Point Lookout Confederate Federal Monument presently is now before the State of Maryland ceded the cemetery to the Federal Government.
During the recent road widening project, we never felt comfortable with the removal of any soil being taken away from within the boundary surveys of this cemetery along the road because this soil contained the remains of many of our ancestors. Even though the soil may only hold teeth we felt their DNA was part of this soil. We still did not feel comfortable with the soil being taken somewhere else. That's when we decided to get an exemption from soil conservation and have the soil deposited on CMP property. This area is very marshy and subject to tidal flooding. The State archeologist, the Maryland Historical Trust and State Highway Administration did not want to collaborate with us. Even though we had a legal exemption from soil conservation, The State Highway Archeologist desperately and intentionally instructed the contractor to take the soil twenty-two miles away instead of 1 mile to a waste pit. Fortunately, one of our board members knew the waste pit owner and we found out his grandfather helped reinter the east side of the cemetery in the 1930’s. He said the soil belongs at CMP and instructed his workers at his expense to have the soil brought back to Confederate Memorial Park. The soil within the boundary of the cemetery was rescued with the help of Roslyn and Bill instructing Jim, staying at the waste pit for a week so he could mark the truckloads of soil from the cemetery. Eventually, 25 tandem truck loads were taken out from the boundary of the cemetery and now the soil is placed in a mound at CMP on the new property.
The State Highway administration {SHA} and the Maryland historical trust (MHT) have ignored our request for a meeting for the last 2 1/2 years until we requested a meeting with Senator Jack Bailey. The SHA and MHT still tried to ignore us and the cemetery. We did have a meeting at Senator Jack Bailey's office that did not amount to anything more than introductions, however we were able to present our primary source documentations and no one could deny the research we provided; that clearly documented the Confederate/Smallpox consolidated cemetery was not completely exhumed. We are still waiting for a response from the SHA, MHT and Senators Bailey. In the meantime, we met with The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) at Point Lookout on January 6th, 2023. DNR had a new survey of the cemetery completed on Dec 22, 2022. With the help of our research and supplying the surveyor the surveys done in 1868 by the War Department and 1931 by Charles Abell Heard and his journal notes from his granddaughter Doris Dorsey who gave us permission to copy them, this cemetery has now been documented on a new survey.
There is a water and sewage line upgrade project soon to start that traverses through the cemetery however there will be an archeologist present and any soil removed will be placed back into the cemetery. We will continue to monitor and DNR will notify us with updates. Our job now is to make sure this cemetery is listed as a historic cemetery. This cemetery was one of the two tracts of land bought in 1868 by the Federal Government with the intention of becoming the National Cemetery at Point Lookout. The other tract was Tanner Creek cemetery. A National Cemetery was never fruitful at Point Lookout because the Federal Government decided to exhume the Union soldiers and reinterred them to Arlington. We found one of the survey markers years ago, marked US 1. When the recent survey was done Dec 22, 2022 the survivor unearthed the other 3 survey markers; US B, US 2, US 3.
Because all the headboards were burnt in a brushfire at Point Lookout before 1870 and before the State of Maryland started exhuming the remains, there is no way of documenting who was exhumed and who is buried under the Point Lookout Confederate Federal Monument or in the pit behind the Point Lookout Confederate Federal Monument or whose remains were left in this cemetery. All we can document is that a Confederate cemetery along with Confederates, Civilians and Colored Union victims of the smallpox hospital are still in this cemetery. That is why it took most of our attention last year and why it is imperative we document and preserve this cemetery. We will complete the book with all the primary sources, once the water and sewage upgrade project at point lookout state park is completed and we are rest assured this cemetery is documented and preserved. We will also be consulting with Point Lookout State Park to plan if descendants would like to visit this cemetery at the Point Lookout Memorial or on their own. The cemetery and survey markers will not be marked and visible to the general public to prevent vandalism. There will be signage placed near the causeway in the future which is about 200 feet from the cemetery.
Even though we have been asked to have an archeologist sift through the 25 tandem truckloads of soil placed at CMP we do not feel comfortable with that either. We decided against anyone touching it, have the soil declared a cemetery, enclose the cemetery soil with an iron fence, and add an informational signage plaque on where the soil came from.
We will get caught up with the newsletters. All the tax donations receipts for 2022 should have been received and we thank everyone for their donations. We still have Point Lookout medals and pins and we are working on another special donation for this year.
As always if anyone has any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We will leave you now only saying, The Truth lies with God and under the soil at Point Lookout.
Always for their Memory,
Jim and Christina Dunbar
Chairmen Confederate Memorial Park Inc.