RECENT COMMENTS

Sons of Confederate Veterans still pushing to help maintain Oakwood Cemetery

The RTD is reporting that the Sons of Confederate Veterans continue to offer to maintain part of Oakwood Cemetery, and would like to install better headstones:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is proposing an agreement that would allow its members to maintain the graves in the Confederate section and gradually to install upright headstones. The group also wants to upgrade the grounds, including the Soldier’s Monument and fencing.

The federally approved headstones would be the same size — 26 inches above ground — as the painted wood markers that stood from 1867 to 1887 before they deteriorated and were removed, said F. Lee Hart III, chairman of the Oakwood Restoration Committee of the group’s Virginia Division.

In 1901, the state put in the small, numbered markers in what was supposed to be a short-term measure to maintain records, he said.