Cemetery Tour

Yesterday I had my field trip to Forest Lawn Cemetery in Madison. It is my favorite field trip! It is sponsored by the WI Veterans Museum, and features stories about the Civil War. They hire a playwright who creates monologues based on people buried in the cemetery who were active during the war. They also hire actors to present the monologues. This year was excellent -- the stories were interesting and held the kids attention, and the actors were simply fantastic. It was a beautiful fall day, the kids behaved, we learned a few things, and then, of course, went to the mall. :) If only all field trips could be so awesome...

John Coleridge Pradt and Col. Stephen Vaughn Shipman

Pradt was a survivor of a surprise attack by Quantrill's Raiders. He was one of only 9 survivors. Shipman was wounded three times in combat, then returned to WI to become an architect. He designed the rotunda for the capitol building.

John Wayles Jefferson
Jefferson was a leader in WI's 8th Infantry. He was wounded twice in combat, and after the war, became a prominent businessman in Madison and Memphis, TN. He passed as white all his life, although he was the grandson of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemmings.

Cpl. George Washington Spears
Spears was a Confederate soldier who was captured, along with his brothers, at Island 10 in the Mississippi and brought to the POW camp at Camp Randall, WI. He was killed in a dispute with a guard and buried in the Confederate rest at the cemetery. It is the most northern cemetery for Confederate soldiers.