County of Cemetery: Lafayette County.
Location of Cemetery: 1st St., inside Missouri Confederate Memorial State Historic Site, Jct. MO-213, busi. MO-13, & MO-20, 2 miles N. of Higginsville.
Today number of grave sites: 906, 800 Confederate Veterans
Monument Erected by: Erected by the Missouri Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Gloria Victis
Monument artist: M.H. Rice
Markers Erected by: Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Division of State Parks.
John T. Graves, died in 1950, at the age of 108. He was the last soldier living at the home, and the last buried in the cemetery.
There are 800 Confederate veterans, and 99 wives and children
Also buried here are William Quantrell of the guerrilla fame (of infamy); and John Fletcher, also a guerrilla leader - if you have seen the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales: , it starts with Josey riding with Fletcher and his Confederate Guerrilla unit
Marker in Cemetery: Contains the 800 names and the tomb locations plus a poem:
"Step lightly near this sacred spot,
and move with solemn tread,
For this is consecrated soil,
Where sleep our honored dead!
The sunlight shimmers through the boughs
Of shadowy forest trees,
Nature weeps here, her silent tears,
A requiem sighs the breeze,
When the tall grasses gently wave,
the wild flower lifts its head,
As if its tribute sweet,
to bring our Confederate dead,...
Elizabeth Ustick McKinney, 1894.
The Civil War may have ended in 1865, but vivid memories of the "Lost Cause" lived on for decades at the Confederate Soldiers Home of Missouri. Opened in 1891, the Confederate Home provided refuge to more than 1,600 veterans and their families for nearly 60 years. These veterans hailed from points throughout the South and served in every major battle of the Civil War. Foot soldiers, artillery and cavalrymen, marines, guerrilla fighters and even spies found a place of rest here in their old age. The very last of these former rebel soldiers, John T. Graves, died at the home in 1950 at the age of 108, thus bringing an end to an amazing era in Missouri history.
Marker at Entrance to Cemetery Text:
Our Confederate Dead
Confederate Memorial Cemetery was established early in the history of the Confederate Home in Missouri. It became the final resting place for 693 Confederate veterans and 108 of their wives.
The first interment was in 1892; the last occurred in 1950 when John T. Graves, the last resident Confederate veteran, died at age 107. His headstone is simply inscribed, "JOHN T. GRAVES, THE LAST OF G. SHELBY'S MEN."
The United Daughters of the Confederacy, one of the Confederate Home's founding organizations, erected the large granite monument that dominates the center of the cemetery. Dedicated to all who served the Confederacy in June of 1906, the monument was inspired by the Lion of Lucerne statue in Lucerne, Switzerland. That monument commemorates the Swiss Guards massacred by a mob while protecting the French King Louis XVI during the French Revolution. The lion, mortally wounded yet proud and defiant, was deemed an appropriate symbol for the Confederacy. The lion's forepaw rests upon the Great Seal of the Confederacy, which features a mounted George Washington surrounded by a wreath pf agricultural products vital to the South. The United Daughters of the Confederacy emblem is centered directly below the lion and set against the first, second, and third national flags of the Confederacy and the Confederate battle flag.