A Field Guide to Oakland Cemetery
Timothy J. Crimmins
Directions and Parking. Parking is available outside the entrance to Oakland at Martin Luther King, Jr.
Drive and Oakland Avenue. Park .(Be sure that you have nothing visible that might entice someone to
break into your car.) Enter the Main Gate and follow the path marked by arrows below to the Visitors
Center.
Main Gate
Visitors Center
Confederate Memorial
(Bell Tower Building)
Brief Historical overview: Originally called Atlanta Graveyard or City Burial Place when it was
established in 1850, it was renamed Oakland Cemetery in 1872. By then it had expanded to 48 acres,
mainly due to pressures of the Civil War. During the war, the City and the Confederate government
added land to bury soldiers who died in local hospitals. As fighting drew closer and engulfed Atlanta,
more burial space was needed. After the war, space was added to provide a proper final resting place
for soldiers who had been hastily buried on area battlefields. By 1867 the cemetery reached its
present size and with the institution of a memorial day in 1866 for the Confederate dead buried there,
1
it became the place of annual commemoration and memory. With the expansions and the planting of
trees and shrubs, Oakland Cemetery developed into a landscaped “rural” cemetery and a place of
recreation of 19th century Atlantans.
Areas of Oakland Cemetery
Oakland Cemetery, c. 1880
Oakland Cemetery, 2010
2
City of the Living and City of the Dead
10:45 Oakland Cemetery: A View of
2.0 Maynard
Jackson
2.1 Margaret
Mitchell
2.4 Lucius
Gartrell
2.3 Joseph E.
Brown
2.X Samuel
P. Richards
1.6 Carrie
Berry
1.8 James
Calhoun
1.10 John
Neal
Slave Square
“Heavenly Safe Deposit Boxes”
19th
Century Atlanta.
3.3
Confederate
Obelisk
Confederate
Lion
3.2 John B.
Gordon
4.9 Roderick
D. Badger
4.10 William
Finch
4.7 Henry
Rucker
1.14
Catherine
Holmes
1.6 Carrie Berry Crumley.
As 10 years old child, she kept a diary during the
bombardment of Atlanta; one of the best surviving accounts; lived until the 1920s, long enough
to send a son into WWI (he committed suicide).
3
1.8 James Calhoun.
Wartime mayor of Atlanta, a prewar Unionist,
ran unsuccessfully to be a (Unionist) delegate to the secession convention; led the city ably
during the war; surrendered the city on Sept. 2
1.10. John Neal
(richest man in Atlanta, soldier sons Andrew and James
both killed in the final months of the war and buried beneath a horseshoe shaped marker, very
unusual for brothers, usually for married couples), Sherman chose the Neal home for his HQ.
Slave Square.
Original African American burial ground.
1.14 Catherine Holmes (336). Former slave and servant, who is buried with the family who
employed her (by permission of the surrounding plot owners).
3.3 Confederate
Dedicated in 1874, the Confederate Obelisk in Oakland Cemetery became
the backdrop of the annual Confederate Memorial Day celebrations for Atlanta, which grew into
major political and cultural events. Twenty-two years later, nearly ten thousand people gathered in
the cemetery, five thousand of whom crowded around the monument after a parade from Peachtree.
Street witnessed by thousands more.
3.3 Confederate Lion (1893)
Sculpted by T. M. Brady, this monument was unveiled on
Confederate Memorial Day 1894. The memorial, depicting a dying lion resting on a Confederate battle
flag, was dedicated to the unknown dead interred in the surrounding square.
4
3.2. John B. Gordon & Fanny Haralson Gordon
John Brown Gordon was a Civil War General, head of the KKK in Georgia after the Civil War
when his wife Fanny headed the Ladies Memorial Association. He was served as a U. S.
Senator after Reconstruction and governor of Georgia when the Capitol was dedicated.
4.9 Roderick D. Badger (52)
slave, dentist, and postwar member
of the African American community of middle class professionals
4.10 William Finch (73)
A former slave and a tailor by trade, Finch became the
first black elected to the Atlanta City Council, in 1870. After he completed his one-year term,
eighty-two years passed before another African American was elected to the city council.
Finch was an advocate for public schools for black children and the employment of black
teachers.
4.7 Henry Rucker (45)
The president of the Georgia Real Estate Loan and
Trust Co., Rucker was appointed by President William McKinley to serve as collector of
internal revenue for Atlanta in 1897. The Rucker Building, at the corner of Piedmont and
Auburn Avenues, was the first office building in Atlanta constructed for black professionals. It
was demolished in 2001.
2.0 Maynard Jackson.
First African American Mayor of
Atlanta, First African American buried in formerly white section of original cemetery.
2.1 Margaret Mitchell (22),
Author of Gone with the Wind
5
2.4 Lucius Gartrell. (47)
U.S. and later Confederate Congressman representing
Atlanta, the city's leading secessionist, postwar criminal defense attorney and law professor,
represents the Atlanta spirit of moving on and forgetting the past.
2.3 Joseph E. Brown family Plot (99). )
Civil War Governor.
2.x Samuel P. Richards,
represents middling businessmen who earned unexpectedly
high profits during the war, wrote diary that is the best surviving account of wartime Atl.;
company he founded is today the oldest Atlanta business in continuous operation
Related Documents:
The Origin of the Custom (of Confederate Memorial Day). MRS. GEORGE T FRY The Atlanta
Constitution Apr 26, 1890.
Confederate Headstones
Unveiling of Lion, April, 1894
6
President McKinley in Atlanta,
December 11, 1898
Our lamented President, William McKinley, at Atlanta, Ga., December 14, 1898, delivered a most
patriotic address, which met with the heartfelt approval of the people throughout the entire country;
and especially did he thereby greatly endear himself to the Southern people. We quote from his
address the following: “Sectional lines no longer mar the map of the United States. Sectional feeling
no longer holds back the love we bear each other. . . . The memory of the dead will be a precious
legacy. . . . The national cemeteries for those who fell in battle all prove that the dead as well as the
living have our love. What an array of silent sentinels we have, and with what loving care their graves
are kept! Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor.
And while, when these graves were made, we differed widely about the future of this Government,
these differences were long ago settled by the arbitrament of arms * * * and the time has now come
in the evolution of sentiment and feeling under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity
we should share with you in care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers. The cordial feeling now
happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act. . . .” Atlanta Constitution,
1898.
12:00 Lunch--Six Feet Under
7