The Civil War memorial, with a fine bronze of a Civil War soldier, was put up in 1891. It stands in the middle of the Homestead Cemetery Soldiers Circle, which is dedicated to veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the two World Wars.
A. D. 1891
Erected to the memory of the country’s defenders by Gen. Griffin Post No. 207 G. A. R., Gen. Griffin Circle No. 41 Ladies of the G. A. R., J. S. Hollinshead Camp No. 31 Sons of Veterans, and the Citizens of Homestead and vicinity.
“Bivouac of the Dead” was written by Theodore O’Hara, who fought for the Confederacy; but it is a mark of how serious we were about reconciliation after the war that it appears on many Union monuments. Like Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees,” it is one of those poems against which nothing can be said, not because it is a great work of art, but because people love it with an unreasoning devotion.
