ANDERSON COUNTY — For organizers of Confederate Memorial Day events, recognizing the dead is not about re-fighting the Civil War, but honoring those who fought in it.
Julia Barnes, Piedmont District director of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, said the day was about remembering the sacrifices made by the veterans.
“I think that people are beginning to understand that our soldiers during the Civil War were still veterans. We’re not refighting the war, we’re remembering the veterans — just like we do our Revolutionary War veterans and the veterans of World War I and World War II,” Barnes said. “They were doing what they felt was honorable in representing South Carolina. South Carolinians were not citizens of the United States during the Civil War, they were citizens of the Confederacy and they were attacked.”
On May 10, South Carolina’s Memorial Day, members of the various chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy will remember Confederate and Union Soldiers across the state.
In Anderson County, two different groups will celebrate the day in different ways.
Marion Whitehurst, president of the John C. Calhoun Chapter of the UDC, said her group would gather at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Old Stone Church cemetery in Pendleton to mark the 45 graves and read off the names of the Confederate dead buried there. The group will also mark the graves of some 13 Revolutionary War patriots, including two women, she said.
In Belton, members of the UDC chapter there will hold a memorial service at 11 a.m. at the Belton Confederate Memorial across from the city cemetery.
Other events are planned for the weekend.
On May 14, a memorial service will be held at noon on the square in Anderson. Later, at 6 p.m., a Civil War Roundtable will be held at Mama Penn’s in Anderson. The evening will feature Nora Brooks, who will provide attendees at a look inside the life of Mildred Childe Lee, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s youngest daughter.
On May 15, the Daughters of the American Revolution will present a historical preservation award to Timothy Drake for his work on the restoration of Woodburn and Ashtabula mansions. The event will be held at 2 p.m. at the Belton Museum.
This event marks the death of Gen. Andrew Stonewall Jackson. This year is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
Barnes said the marking of the sesquicentennial has precipitated a change in people’s perception of Confederate Memorial Day and what it means.
“There’s a heightened interest in the Civil War,” she said. “There’s been a lot of stuff on television and in magazines and in the newspaper. I think it’s bringing it more to the people’s attention. And there’s a lot more interest in society as a whole and how the war impacted the men and women of the time.”
