Thursday, September 10, 2009

Not Forgotten

By Joey Oller

The Elizabethtown City Cemetery is a quiet resting place for over fifty Confederate soldiers, but in December 1862, it was far from peaceful, as cannon balls roared through the air, bombarding Union forces occupying the city. Those forces would eventually surrender the hill to Confederate General, John Hunt Morgan.

After many years of research,that battle and the Confederate soldiers who called Hardin County home were remembered on August 1st by the General Ben Hardin Helm Camp at the cemetery, where three interpretive markers were unveiled.

The first marker was unveiled commemorates the Battle of Elizabethtown, in which Gen. John Hunt Morgan used the cemetery as part of the battleground. The other two markers or located on cemetery hill at Confederate Place, that list the names and regiments of numerous Confederate soldiers of Hardin County. Each name had to be researched through every source available, but sadly enough it is known that well over 300 names have been left off the markers.

The camp plans additional markers in the Helm Cemetery later this year to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the 1884 burial of Gen. Benjamin Hardin Helm in Elizabethtown.

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