Search aims to identify Civil War dead in cemetery

But in a queer twist of history, Aristarchus Lee Jenkins' service to the Southern cause is now honored with a brilliant white marble headstone bought by his former enemy, the U.S. government.

A foot soldier in the North Carolina Infantry, Jenkins survived some of the most horrific battles of the Civil War. He was twice wounded by Yankee lead and was likely present for the death of his older brother, a soldier in the same unit.

Not long after the guns fell silent, Jenkins was admitted to the state asylum suffering from "mania." He lived there until his death in 1891, according to the few hospital records still available.

ONLY A NUMBER

Like hundreds of other patients shunned by their families even in death, the Granville County native was buried in a plot in the Dix cemetery marked with only his hospital case number, 821.

"Aristarchus laid his life on the line to defend his homeland," said Gracie Jenkins, a great-great-niece and amateur genealogist who uncovered the soldier's story. "I didn't think he should be forgotten about. His life, what he went through, was so hard."

The first body was buried in the asylum cemetery in 1859, about three years after the hospital opened. It is perhaps representative of society's view of the value of those buried there that by the time the last grave was dug in 1970, the cemetery was abutted on two sides by a City of Raleigh landfill.

"Those were times people just went to Dix and a lot of them were never heard from again," said Burley Mitchell, a former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court who has worked to honor those buried on the hospital grounds. "They lived and died there, and were buried as paupers."

There are thought to be more than 1,000 graves at Dix, some lost under the tall, dirt-covered mounds of rotting refuse in the now-closed landfill. A modest restoration effort began about 20 years ago after hospital workers noticed that garbage trucks had repeatedly run over a corner of the graveyard, exposing shards of decaying wood from some of the simple pine caskets crafted in a hospital workshop.

Volunteers used dinner forks to probe the red clay for graves, and the hospital's maintenance department erected a modest chain fence to delineate what were thought to be the cemetery's boundaries.

ROOTING AROUND

In the 1990s, hospital employees dug through decades-old records in an attempt to identify who was where. About 700 graves are now topped with brick-sized stones cut by a local headstone company from bits and pieces of leftover granite. There is only room on the small stones for a name and a date of death. Most are covered by a layer of grass, only visible if someone goes rooting around for them.

A handful of patients did have larger markers paid for by loved ones, but many had been broken or scattered over the years. With donations, the hospital erected a "Wall of Remembrance," where some of the broken stones are mounted.

Aristarchus Jenkins, long forgotten by even his own kin, was laid to rest with no such distinctive marker.

Gracie Jenkins, a graphic artist from Raleigh, set out eight years ago to learn more about her ancestors. In researching her family tree, she learned her great-great-grandfather was one of 14 brothers raised on a family farm in Granville County.

"I think it's fascinating to learn about our ancestors, those who made it possible for us to be here," she said last week. "The research is time consuming, and it's sort of addictive. But it keeps me out of trouble, I guess."

Through a register of Civil War servicemen, she determined that seven Jenkins boys had enlisted in the army of the Confederate States of America.

Infantry units at that time were drawn from local communities, ensuring that soldiers marched to war with brothers, cousins and neighbors. Confederate records show Aristarchus, then 22, enlisted in the 15th Regiment, Company E, of the state's volunteer militia in May 1861, four days before North Carolina seceded from the Union. A cousin, Elias, enlisted with him. Aristar-chus' brother, Pulaski, followed the next year.

Attached to the Army of Northern Virginia under Gen. Robert E. Lee, the regiment was involved in several major battles. Pulaski drowned in the Rapidan River in August 1862 as the rebel army moved north to invade Maryland.

Two weeks after his brother's death, Aristarchus fought at Antietam. The battle was the bloodiest single day in American military history, with about 23,000 casualties, or five times the number killed on D-Day during World War II.

Records show Aristarchus was shot in the head at the battle of Bristoe Station in October 1863. He recovered, only to be shot in the shoulder in May 1864.

After being hospitalized in Richmond, Aristarchus returned to his unit in November during the bloody siege at Petersburg. By the winter, the Confederate soldiers were under nearly constant attack, low on ammunition and food.

According to Confederate records, Aristarchus deserted his post and crossed to the Union lines on Feb. 17, 1865.

The 15th Regiment surrendered with the Lee's army less than two months later. Of the 800 men who had marched to war with Aristarchus four years earlier, just 138 were left by April 1865.

SHUNNED BY HIS FAMILY

"He left the Army because he was starving," Gracie Jenkins said. "When he came back to the family farm, his father wouldn't speak to him because he was a deserter. He was shunned by his family."

Aristarchus had no children listed in the Jenkins family Bible and no living relative could tell her what had happened to him. His grave was not among those in the family plot in Granville County, where his brothers are buried.

Gracie found him in records of the 1870 Census, listed as a 32-year-old resident of the N.C. State Insane Asylum.

Gracie persuaded a worker at the hospital to dig through records to find out how her ancestor had ended up there. After 140 years, little information was available.

But a register showed that Aristarchus was admitted in April 1868, after suffering for more than one year from mania, a term 19th-century doctors used to describe such psychiatric symptoms as hallucinations, delusions and mood disorders.

There was no mention of the cause of Aristarchus' illness. There was little knowledge at the time of the impact of repeated exposure to violent events on the mind.

Following the Civil War, alcohol and opiate abuse by returning veterans was so commonplace it was called "Soldier's Sickness."

The register from Dix noted that Aristarchus died of consumption, the term often used to describe tuberculosis, in January 1891, nearly 23 years after his admission. He was 51.

The records also gave the location of his grave in the Dix cemetery. Row E, plot No. 30.

Gracie Jenkins crawled through the grass, digging with her fingers to find the small stone markers added by volunteers in the 1990s. She eventually found one with Aristarchus' name.

Later, she successfully petitioned the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a new 400-pound headstone, which was erected in 2006 with the help of a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Charles Purser, a member of the group who lives in Garner, said he plans to research the long list of those buried at Dix for the names of other veterans.

"There has to be some more out there," Purser said. "We're willing to put up a headstone for any American soldier we find there, even if they're Union."

Last update : 29-12-2009 16:37

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