Daughters, Sons of Confederacy honor their dead

A Sunday ceremony at Sardis Presbyterian Church follows a Saturday gathering at Myrtle Hill Cemetery marking Confederate Memorial Day.

Brothers Alfred and Charles Bale are buried side by side, two of the 21 local Confederate soldiers laid to rest in the cemetery of Sardis Presbyterian Church.

“Together in war, together in death,” local historian Mike Ragland said.

Ragland was the speaker at a Confederate Memorial Day ceremony hosted by the Emma Sansom Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. About two-dozen people attended the service at the church, which was established in 1836 just past The Narrows on Alabama Highway.

Intermittent rain dampened the ground and darkened

the interior of the small wooden building where the UDC had assembled a wreath of magnolia leaves and stems of white roses to place on the graves along with small flags.

“We do this every year to honor our ancestors who fought for what they believed in,” member Daryl Jean Gould said.

The chapter originally marked the day with the Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest Camp 469 Sons of Confederate Veterans, who held a larger ceremony Saturday in the Civil War section of Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome.

But Gould said they soon decided to memorialize the dead in little cemeteries around the county, and recently found a home at Sardis.

“Some of these soldiers

have military emblems on their tombstones, but some just have regular stones,” said Pat Millican, a genealogist at the RomeFloyd County Library. “All of them buried out there are from this area.”

The 6th Regiment Georgia Cavalry was formed on the grounds of the church, and drew volunteers from

Chattooga County and Cherokee County, Alabama, as well as Floyd, according to Mary Frances Wilson, who sits on the Sardis Preservation Society board.

The ceremony Sunday included a roll call of the dead, songs accompanied by bagpiper Joe Dunaway and an honor guard from the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 669, Capt. Max Van Den Corput’s Battery, in Cave Spring.

Diane Wagner / Mike Ragland looks at the graves of brothers Alfred and Charles Bale, two Confederate soldiers, in the cemetery of Sardis Presbyterian Church where the Emma Sansom Chapter of the UDC marked Confederate Memorial Day Sunday.

Kristina Wilder / Chad Matthews (left) and his son Mason Matthews prepare a bronze replica of the Confederate Mountain Rifle to be fired Saturday during the Confederate Memorial Day ceremony at Myrtle Hill Cemetery. Matthews built the cannon himself.