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The photograph on the left shows the Soldier's and Sailor's plot as it looked circa 1910. The GAR monument has a full sized bronze statue atop the stone pedestal, and each grave is marked with a marble stone. The middle photo shows the cemetary plot as it was in April, 1999. The statue, stolen in 1951, is missing from its place. All the marble headstones are flat on the ground, broken off their bases by vandalism and the passage of time. The last photo shows the plot on Veteran's Day, 2000. Each headstone has been replaced with new Veteran's Administration marble stones. The Sentinal statue is still missing from its place. We still need help to return the resting place of these veterans to it's rightful and original condition. Donations are needed to help purchase a new Sentinel to watch over these graves. Click on an image for a larger view.

The 122nd New York is raffled off this Troiani print of the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg. Appropriately enough, the print was won by Paul Penrod of the 1st Minnesota, Company D.

Pictured is Ron Roth, right, receiving the Troiani print "Mosby Reports" from Chris Piering. Ron won the 2004 Sentinel Project raffle.

In 1885, the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans group akin to today’s American Legion, erected a monument in historic Oakwood Cemetary. This monument was a life sized bronze statue of a civil war soldier, standing as a lone sentinel over the graves of 231 veterans of the American Civil War.

For sixty-six years, this statue in full uniform, held his musket and gazed southward, a dedicated guard designed to last for generations. On June 25, 1951, thieves stole the statue, presumably to melt the bronze down for scrap.

Today, the eight-foot granite base is all that remains, with the inscription, "In Memory of Our Dead Comrades", below the stone which originally supported the Sentinel.

Over the past century, the Soldiers and Sailors plot of Oakwood Cemetary has seen vandalism and neglect. The 122nd NYV and other interested parties have worked to restore the area to a place of dignity by replacing the headstones of the honored dead.

More Photos by Pam Hierholzer taken at the Rededication of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil War section of Oakwood Cemetary. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Some photos by Dave Tyler. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

All but two of the 231 Civil War soldiers and sailors buried in the hillside plot at Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse survived the war, which made the Veterans Day rededication of their graves particularly appropriate.

On Saturday, at a solemn ceremony at Oakwood, these soldiers were once again given a proper tribute for their actions on behalf of the Union. New gravestones mark each of the 231 graves, installed by members of the 122d New York State Volunteer Infantry, a Civil War reenactment group that has spent countless hours over the past two years hand placing the tombstones at the head of each grave.

In the fall of 1998, the president of the 122d, Chris Piering, who lives in Onondaga and operates Camillus Chiropractic, was walking through Oakwood Cemetery to a Syracuse University football game. He noticed the Civil War veterans section of the cemetery had fallen into disrepair. Although Oakwood does its best to maintain its many historic grave sites, it has not been blessed with the endowment to properly maintain the entire cemetery, he said.

“The repair of the monuments is really beyond their means,” Piering said during the ceremony.
Vandalism and age had taken their toll on this particular plot. In 1951, the statue commemorating the Civil War veterans’ service to the Union was stolen, presumably to be melted down for scrap metal. Also in the 1950s, vandals toppled each of the 231 headstones in the Civil War section. Since then, weeds and overgrowth had shrouded the grave markers. Some were nearly illegible.

Piering took it upon himself to organize members of the 122d to rebuild each of the grave sites and replace each of the headstones.

After doing some research, he found that to replace each of the headstones with a replica of the original would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, the members of the 122d petitioned the Veterans Administration for new, simple, marble headstones, bearing the names, regiment and birth and death dates.
The VA delivered the headstones in lots of 40 and the members of the 122d installed the stones. The first went into the ground in June, 1999 and the last were put in this fall. During transport, two of the stones were broken and will be replaced.

On Saturday, the names of each of these soldiers and sailors was called out, and they were each individually saluted by a member of the 122d. Most are from New York, with some notable exceptions, including a member of the 54th Massachusetts, the first colored regiment in the Civil War, which was recently depicted in the movie “Glory.”

“These men gave the best years of their lives for an ideal. They did so, so that we could live free,” Piering said Saturday. “Now they’re gathered on this green hillside in a field of peace.”

The efforts of the 122d may also help memorialize men who otherwise would be forgotten. While Oakwood maintains records of everyone buried in the cemetery, information including the regiment and service history of these men was only kept on the headstones themselves.

The work is not done yet. Piering hopes the 122d can raise enough money to replace the statue which was stolen in 1951. That will cost about $30,000, he said, which he hopes will be raised through private donations.

At the end of the ceremony, the members of the 122d lined up in formation in front of the monument and saluted the soldiers and sailors with three shots as a cannon fired nearby. The silhouettes of the reenactors with their guns pointed to the skies, brought images of Appomattox and Shiloh and the dozens of other battlefields where the men buried in Oakwood Cemetery fought for an ideal.

Reprinted from the Baldwinsville Messenger.