Documenting the American South

Monument Name

Bivouac of the Dead, Salisbury National Cemetery Annex, Salisbury

Type

Plaque

Subjects

Mexican War, 1846-1848

Civil War, 1861-1865

City

Salisbury

County

Rowan

Description

This simple unadorned plaque contains the first stanza of Theodore O’Hara’s poem “The Bivouac of the Dead". It is made of cast aluminum, painted black with silver lettering and is attached to a lectern shaped granite block about several feet tall. Similar plaques have been placed at most if not all National Cemeteries administered by the Veterans Administration. Versions of this plaque were first produced in the late 1800’s and placed at some of the National Cemeteries to include Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. None of the early versions named the author, likely because O’Hara had served as a Colonel in the Confederate Army.

Images: View of the Salisbury National Cemetery Annex

Inscription

FROM THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD / BY THEODORE O’HARA

THE MUFFLED DRUM’S SAD ROLL HAS BEAT / THE SOLDIER’S LAST TATTOO; / NO MORE ON LIFE’S PARADE SHALL MEET / THAT BRAVE AND FALLEN FEW. / ON FAME’S ETERNAL CAMPING- GROUND / THEIR SILENT TENTS ARE SPREAD, / AND GLORY GUARDS, WITH SOLEMN ROUND, / THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

Custodian

Salisbury National Cemetery, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Dedication Date

Circa 2010-2015

Decade

2010s

Geographic Coordinates

35.684160 , -80.492540 View in Geobrowse

Series

Bivouac of the Dead

Supporting Sources

Butler, Douglas J. North Carolina Civil War Monuments, An Illustrated History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2013), 9, 32, 157, 159-160

Powell, William S. and Beverly Tetterton. 2006. "Cemeteries, National and State," NCpedia.org, (accessed August 19, 2013) Link

West, Mike. “Civil War: Famous Elegy Written By Confederate Officer,” Murfreesboro Post (Murfreesboro, TN), (accessed July 31, 2016) Link

“Bivouac Of The Dead,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, http://www.cem.va.gov, (accessed July 31, 2016) Link

“Theodore O’Hara’s 'Bivouac of the Dead,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration, www.cem.va.gov, (accessed July 31, 2016) Link

Public Site

Yes

Materials & Techniques

Cast aluminum

Sponsors

National Cemetery Administration

Subject Notes

“The Bivouac of the Dead" is an elegiac poem that expresses feelings of melancholy, sorrow or lamentation—especially for a person or persons who are dead. Although O’Hara wrote “Bivouac” as a remembrance of the many casualties suffered in the Mexican War by the Second Kentucky Regiment of Foot Volunteers it seemed to capture the attention of a patriotic nation after the Civil War. It began to appear in various forms at Civil War battlefields and cemeteries across the county. Army Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs (1816-92) recognized its solemn appeal and directed that lines from the poem grace the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery. In 1881 he had the War Department’s Rock Island Arsenal fabricate cast-iron tablets for use at national cemeteries to replace versions painted on signboards.

The iron plaques ordered by Meigs did not credit the author. The most likely explanation is that O’Hara fought on the Confederate side and it was seen as inappropriate to credit him at cemeteries for Union dead. The cast-iron plaques became costly to maintain and most were removed in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. It is not known if any of these removed plaques had been at North Carolina cemeteries and only 14 of the originals remain at national cemeteries.

Parts of “Bivouac” were also popular on Confederate memorials placed in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s including the first monument placed in North Carolina at Cross Creek Cemetery in Fayetteville, in Lenoir, Goldsboro, and Lumberton.

O’Hara was born in Danville, Kentucky, on February 11, 1820. Educated as a lawyer he worked for the U.S Treasury before serving as a captain in the Mexican War (1846-48) and again in the conflict with Cuba (1850-51) until suffering an injury at the Battle of Cardenas. Volunteering for active duty again in the Civil War, this time with the Confederate Army, O’Hara served as a colonel in command of the 12th Alabama. He died on June 6, 1867.

Location

The marker is located in front of the cemetery administration building at 501 Statesville Blvd., Salisbury, NC, on the grounds of the Veterans Administration Hospital. A Gettysburg Address Plaque stands nearby.

Landscape

The memorial stand on the front lawn, facing the Salisbury National Cemetery-Annex.