12 June 1875
Gordonsville, Va., June 9, 1875. -- The graves of the Confederate dead buried here were strewn with flowers to-day by the ladies of the Mt. Lee Memorial Association. The members of the association and visitors met in the Southern Methodist Church, a very handsome building, where Judge Charles E. Sinclair of Prince William county delivered the memorial oration. Judge Sinclair was introduced by Hon. B. Johnson Barbour, of Orange, who opened the ceremonies with a few appropriate remarks. After the oration a procession was formed, each person carrying a basket of flowers, and marched to the cemetery about a mile from town, where, without further ceremony, an hour was spent in decorating the graves of the sleeping heroes.This cemetery has been laid out and the dead reinterred there in the past few months. It is [e]nclosed with a substantial picket fence, with a very neat arched entrance. It contains the bodies of six hundred and eighty-five, most of whom died in the hospitals here from wounds received in the battles of Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville and Trevillians. Each grave is marked with a cast iron head board, made in the shape of a shield, upon which are the letters "C.S.A.," crossed cannons, and the number corresponding with the list of the dead.
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