Springfield National Cemetery....Springfield, Missouri

DATE:  November 14, 2015

HISTORICAL SITE:  Springfield National Cemetery

 

LOCATION:  1702 E. Seminole St., Springfield, Greene Co., Missouri

MARKER #:  99001045

DEDICATED:  August 27, 1999

"This national cemetery has been listed in The National Register of Historic Places"

MARKER PLACED BY:  United States Department of the Interior

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: 

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived” – General George S. Patton

I think I’ve mentioned before that there is this fascination when one place I’ve blogged about becomes connected to another. That’s the case with the Springfield National Cemetery.

This area was home to the Kickapoo Indians and the area around the cemetery was known as Kickapoo Prairie. Missouri was truly the edge of civilization before people started making their way west. We’ve seen, as with the Patee hotel, that people knew they were going into or coming out of the wilderness.

Slavery, among other issues, had always been a dividing point in the United States and it came to a head on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates opened fire on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

Not long after, the Missouri legislators met and voted against secession but said if the north declared war on the south, then they would fight for the Confederacy.

In August 1861, the first major engagement west of the Mississippi River took place at Wilson’s Creek, about 15 miles north of the cemetery. The win really went to the Confederates but they failed to push forward and gave the federal military time to regroup. The south would never really hold Missouri although the state was full of southern sympathizers.

The city bought 80 acres on the outskirts of Springfield. The cemetery was named Springfield National Cemetery, not because it was part of the federal government, but because that was the name of the street that used to run on the south border of the land. The street disappeared when the cemetery was expanded.

 The civic leaders gave the U.S. government the choice of areas within the cemetery for the sole purpose of burying Union soldiers and most had fought at Wilson’s Creek. The cemetery opened in 1867, and soldiers buried around the area were disinterred and reburied here.

In the end, there would be 1,514 Union soldiers buried with 719 unknowns. There were 566 Confederates and the majority of those were unknown. There’s something about standing there and you can see a sea of “Unknown Confederate Soldier” tombstones.

There are several monuments within the cemetery. The first one you see was placed in 1888 to the memory of Union General Nathaniel Lyon, the commanding officer at Wilson’s Creek and the 1st Union General to die in the Civil War.

A few years later, in 1901, a monument to Confederate General Sterling Price was raised. Price was once the Governor of Missouri and the Confederate Commander at Wilson’s Creek.

A local doctor, T.J. Bailey, had wanted a monument put up upon his death so in 1907 it was placed with the inscription “erected under the provisions of the last will of Dr. Thomas Bailey to show his love for the Union and its gallant defenders”

But this wasn’t the only cemetery around. Right next to the National Cemetery, there was a smaller one for Confederate soldiers. In 1911, the Confederate Cemetery Association donated 6 acres with the stipulation that only men who fought on the side of the Confederacy could be buried there. An Act of Congress in 1911 ordered the Secretary of War to accept the confederate cemetery as part of the Springfield National Cemetery.

After WWII, with a lot of space on the Confederate side, the Dept. of Veterans Affairs asked permission of the Confederate Association to bury soldiers from other wars in the area. The permission was given except for a smaller walled off section.

In 1958, the Daughters of the Confederacy put up a monument to all the unknown Confederate soldiers who died at Wilson’s Creek.

It wasn’t until the 1980’s, with amendments to the agreement with the Confederate Cemetery Association, that all veterans were eligible to be buried in the smaller Confederate section.

Yeah, they waited until no one was alive who could argue the point, but then again, who would be buried there as all Confederate soldiers were gone at this point.

There are soldiers buried here from most of America's wars including one revolutionary war veteran. Private William Freeman, born in North Carolina, was a scout for General George Washington. In 1912, his remains were removed from the family farm and re-interred here.

A monument was erected by the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association in 1992 as a tribute to those who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and in 1999, the Sons & Daughters of the American Revolution honored those who died in the revolution with another monument.

In addition, five Buffalo Soldiers are buried here. These were members of African American army regiments created after the Civil War. They were the protectors of settlers moving west, they built and renovated Army posts and camps, and maintained law and order in the western expanses of the country. 

There are also 5 recipients of the Medal Of Honor buried in the cemetery. This is our nation's highest military decoration, given for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

1999 was also when the cemetery was given the designation and put on the register of historic places.

“I don't have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch, or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world.” – President Ronald Reagan

Japanese American Detention Camp - Sacramento, California

DATE VISITED:  03/28/2015

HISTORICAL SITE:  Japanese American Detention Camp

LOCATION:  Walerga Park - 4901 Palm Ave., Sacramento, Sacramento Co., CA

MARKER #:  934

DEDICATED:  February 1987

"Walerga Assembly Center was established by the United States at the outset of World War II to assemble and temporily detain, without charge or trial, 4,739 Sacramento residents solely because of their Japanese ancestry. Approximately 120,000 persons were uprooted from their West Coast homes and interned in ten War Relocation Centers. Over two-thirds were American citizens by birth. Given the opportunity, many thousands left the ten centers to work on farms and in war industries or to serve with valor in the armed forces. Their acts and deeds gave living proof that Americanism is a matter of mind and heart, not a matter of race or ancestry. May this memorial remind all Americans to be alert so that such injustices never recur.

Camp Kohler succeeded Walerga Assembly Center with the departure of the last Japanese American internee's in late Jun, 1942. After being taken over by the Army Signal Corps, the camp's facilities were greatly expanded to house and train military personnel. Camp Kohler became of the Corps three principal training centers during World War II."

**closer look below

Marker Placed By: Dedicated by the Japanese American Community of Sacramento in cooperation with Sunrise Recreation and Park District 

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: I wasn't sure I would go out this weekend for two reasons. One, I had not finished writing my blog articles until Friday but the second reason is that I am sort of pouting over the fact that I only get 2 days off this weekend. It's amazing how quickly you get used to working only 3 days a week.

But my retirement is edging closer...as so many people keep reminding me and I do realize how fortunate I am to be able to retire so early. With that being said, I decided to pick a monument close to home and nothing too challenging.

In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order which basically gave America the right to "detain" those who were of Japanese, Italian and German ancestry. While there were Italian's and German's interned, it is the Japanese that were treated more unjustly than the other groups. After all, the Italian's and German's had more or less assimilated into American society whereas the Japanese kept to themselves and were encouraged to do so by most Americans.

I find this an interesting chance from the monument I visited last week, the Wakamatsu Tea & Silk Farm Colony. My research there found Americans taking a more positive stance towards the first Japanese coming to America.

During the period from 1860 to 1940, there was a large influx of Japanese, mostly to Hawaii to work in the cane fields. We have found one of the reasons there were so many Japanese migrating away from Japan was in response to the Boshin War. Once here, when their contracts expired, some stayed in Hawaii but many moved to California.

The Japanese naturally kept to themselves but it was made worse by the refusal of the real estate industry to sell properties to Japanese Americans outside of existing Japanese enclaves. In 1913, the California Assembly restricted land ownership to citizens and in 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the government’s right to deny citizenship to Japanese immigrants. Not our finest moment.

When Japan entered WWII by bombing Pearl Harbor, in 1941, Americans were free to fear the Japanese they had come to disdain.

I've always said it's easy to sit in judgment of our past seeing it through the eyes of today's world.

EO #9066 gave the Secretary of War the power to decide which areas of the U.S. were to be considered "military zones". He deemed the entire west coast to be of enough military importance that the Department of Justice was ordered to detain anyone of Japanese ancestry with the exception of those serving in the military.

 

The Department of Justice had some real ethical issues over the detainment's and so the U.S. Army was instructed to carry out the orders.

I read a very interesting (ok, I can see all my family and friends rolling their eyes) article about the interments...looking at it from the vantage point of what was going on in 1941/1942; how quickly the decision had to be made and some of the factors. I'm not saying it was right, but again, it is not us in 2015 making that decision.

But leaving that up to history, the fact is, it happened. The Japanese were to be moved to what the U.S. would consider to be areas at less risk; mainly where no one else wanted to be. But because the decision was made quickly, those camps were not built and the deadline to "surrender" themselves was March 30, 1942. A little over a month!

So the U.S. opened "assembly" areas and the one I visited was in Sacramento. Today, the site is Walerga Park but originally it was a migrant labor camp and, while today's park is small, the original camp was larger than I had thought...eleven blocks with 225 buildings. The population would eventually reach 4,739 individuals before being moved to the permanent site at Tule Lake. It was populated for only 5 months before being closed as a detention center.

 

The site was used for other purposes before burning down in 1947.

In 1982, an official government study found the internments were unjustified and were based on "race prejudice and war hysteria".

PublicLaw #100-383 recommended a written apology from U.S. Government and $20k tax free "redress" person so interred. Those disbursements were made starting in 1990 and I remember someone I worked with saying her father received the funds.