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Archiver > MO-CW > 2001-12 > 1007373926


From: "Desoto Joe" <>
Subject: Re: [MO-CW] Civil War Dead in Mexico
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 04:05:26 -0600
References: <B826D899.5D58%lakedgers@rpa.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "E" <>
To: <>
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 4:19 PM
Subject: [MO-CW] Civil War Dead in Mexico


> Too strange
> Checking this site
> http://www.abmc.gov/abmc4.htm
>
> I discovered
> AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSION
> CIVIL WAR DEAD OR VETERANS
> Buried at the Mexico City National Cemetery or the Corozal American
> Cemetery are eight American servicemen who died during the Civil War and
> forty-five Civil War Veterans.
>
> Including 2nd Lieutenant, Co M, 4th Missouri Cavalry
>
> No explanation how they got there.
>

The veterans died there after the war.

As for the 8 who died during the conflict?
This I know,

A sloop of War built in 1844, ST. MARY'S served in the Pacific Fleet during
the Civil War and made some patrols against the slave trade. There were
black seamen abord this ship. NARA has this tidbit:

The stigma of guilt by association with slavery dogged "contraband" sailors
even when they served thousands of miles from the scene of bondage. The
Maryland men transferred from the army to the navy during the spring of 1864
provide a case in point. Although a number of the nearly eight hundred men
had had experience working small boats on Chesapeake Bay, what defined them
most as a group was their slave past. When navy officials assigned several
hundred of the men to the Pacific Squadron, white sailors offered the
newcomers a chilly welcome. In a postwar memoir, Edward W. Hammond, the
white boatswain of USS St. Mary, recalled the "intense race hatred" that a
particularly belligerent segment of the ship's company displayed toward the
"contrabands." During the evening dog watches, when sailors customarily
relaxed on the main deck, the rowdies made a habit of tossing gun-chocks at
any black man who dared venture from below. The flying missiles threatened
the peace and safety of the entire crew. Even Hammond and his friends, who
used to congregate "about the pumps, or the steerage hatchway, or the open
space about the capstan" had "to abandon entirely these exposed positions."
"By settling down on deck with our back to the after side of a gun," he
explained, "we were comparatively safe" though mightily inconvenienced. On
one occasion when the contrabands threatened "resistance in force," Hammond
recalled, the captain mustered the guard "with muskets loaded" to avert a
"serious riot."

This happened in Valparaiso Harbor, 1865.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a picture of the USS St. Mary's
http://www.sunymaritime.edu/ABOUT/summer_sea_term/SST/museum/stmary.jpg

Here is a picture of the USS JAMESTOWN
http://www.nnsy1.navy.mil/History/JAMESTWN.HTM

Here is the COROZAL AMERICAN CEMETERY
http://www.abmc.gov/cz.htm

Here is the MEXICO CITY NATIONAL CEMETERY
http://www.abmc.gov/mx.htm

Desoto Joe/The Record Man


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