Thomas B. Dunn died at the Battle of Five Forks in 1865, less than a week before Lee surrendered at Appomattox. This elaborate romantic trophy-tombstone crowds every symbol of martial victory into a busy but harmonious composition. (Although much of the inscription is obliterated, cemetery records confirm that the half-obscured family name is Dunn.)
In memory of the soldiers from Sharpsburg and Etna and the surrounding area. The statue is typical of this sort of memorial: not exactly crude, but not subtle. The monument was erected by a post of the Grand Army of the Republic named for General George A. Custer, whose later reputation tends to obscure his successes in the Civil War.
The monument was put up in 1876; the sculpture was by Fred Meyer, a local artist. It is difficult to form an opinion of its artistic merit today, since the years have considerably softened its features; but Father Pitt is inclined to say that it is not a work of the first quality. In its setting, however, surrounded as it is by the regimented gravestones of the men who served in the war, it is as evocative and picturesque as anyone could desire.
William F. McGregor (old Pa Pitt looked the full name up in the cemetery records) was killed at the battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, in 1864. His obelisk includes an ornament with a rifle and (perhaps) a flag; the marble is eroded, and it is hard to make out the details. Try your hand at it: click on the image, and you’ll get a picture at 12-megapixel resolution.
With a thin coating of snow everywhere, the light on this january morning was glorious.
A monument in honor of the men of Sewickley who “sacrificed their lives for the unity of the republic in the War of the Great Rebellion.” This was, according to the cemetery’s site, the first Civil War memorial in Allegheny County, put up just after the war in 1866.
