The removal of remains from all these burial places was attended with
much difficulty because of the lack of identifying marks. It was
impossible to determine whether they were removing soldiers or
civilians, and the whole undertaking was attended with much confusion.
It appeared that during the Civil War a large number of Confederates
died and were buried near Fort Washita. The correspondence relating to
the subject would indicate that removal of the dead from this cemetery
was limited to those known to have been in the service of the Union
Army, and the Confederate dead were probably not disturbed.
The result was summarized in a report of December 31, 1893, which
accounted for graves in the National Cemetery at Fort Gibson, of 231
known to be soldiers and 2,212 whose identity and service were unknown.
Of the comparatively few who are identified by inscriptions on
monuments, the greatest number are to be seen within what is known as
the Officers’ Circle. Among these is Flora, the young Cherokee wife of
Lieutenant Daniel H. Rucker, who died at Fort Gibson June 26, 1845. Her
husband survived her to become in later years Quartermaster General of
the United States Army. John Decatur, brother of Stephen Decatur, died
on November 12, 1832, while a sutler at Fort Gibson. Lieutenant John W.
Murray of the West Point Class of 1830, of the Seventh Infantry, was
killed on February 14, 1831, by being thrown from his horse. Murray’s
classmate, Lieutenant James West, died at Fort Gibson on September 28,
1834.
On May 27, 1831, Lieutenant Frederick Thomas of the Seventh Infantry, a
West Point graduate of 1825, was drowned in the Arkansas River. His
classmate, Lieutenant Benjamin W. Kinsman, also of the Seventh Infantry,
died May 14, 1832. Lieutenant Thomas C. Brockway, a graduate of West
Point of the class of 1828, died at Fort Gibson, September 28, 1831.
Among those removed from Fort Towson were West Point graduates of the
class of 1826, Lieutenants Charles L. C. Minor and Alexander G. Baldwin,
both of the Fifth Infantry, who died at Fort Towson in 1833 and 1835
respectively, and Lieutenant James H. Taylor of the Third Infantry, who
was drowned near Fort Towson in the Cositot River, in 1835. Also in the
Officers’ Circle is the monument of Captain Billy Bowlegs, the
celebrated Seminole warrior, who served in the Union Army and died
during the Civil War, and who is buried in another part of the cemetery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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