The Story
The Confederate Cemetery in Kingston holds the graves of roughly 250 Confederate soldiers, most of them unknown, along with two Union dead, many of whom died in field hospitals in the area during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. The site is nationally significant as the home of one of the earliest Decoration Day observances, a forerunner of Memorial Day: on April 26, 1865, local women decorated the graves, and when the occupying Federal commander insisted the Union graves be honored too, they agreed. The memorial tradition has continued annually and is maintained today by the Kingston Woman's History Club, founded in 1900 as a successor to the wartime Soldiers' Aid Society.
About this site
Confederate Cemetery is a cemetery in Kingston, Bartow County. It is one of 107 cemeteries documented in Bartow County, among 265 historic sites cataloged across the county on Georgia Roam.
The site sits at 34.2306, -84.9467 near Kingston. The nearest cataloged historic site is Unknown Confederate Dead (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Melvinia Shields, Original Hospital Site of Wayside Home, and House - Site Thomas V. B. Hargis.
This record is drawn from the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
History
The Confederate Cemetery in Kingston holds the graves of roughly 250 Confederate soldiers, most of them unknown, along with two Union dead, many of whom died in field hospitals in the area during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. The site is nationally significant as the home of one of the earliest Decoration Day observances, a forerunner of Memorial Day: on April 26, 1865, local women decorated the graves, and when the occupying Federal commander insisted the Union graves be honored too, they agreed. The memorial tradition has continued annually and is maintained today by the Kingston Woman's History Club, founded in 1900 as a successor to the wartime Soldiers' Aid Society.
Sources: cityofkingstonga.orghmdb.orgevhsonline.org
Georgia