County of Marker: St. Louis County
Location of marker: Omar Bradley Drive, SW section of cemetery
Plaque Text:
In 1982, Jefferson Barracks National cemetery adopted the use of flat granite markers to mark the gravesites of veterans, service member and family members. Jefferson Barracks became one of 78 VA National Cemeteries to provide a combination of flat markers and upright headstones. In 1987, pursuant to Public Law 99-576, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery resumed the use of upright headstones in new burial sections while continuing to place flat markers in sections that were designated for their use (sections BB, LL, MM, NN, W, X, and Y). Nine National VA Cemeteries use flat markers exclusively for gravesites and moralization in their burial sections.
"To care for him who shall have borne
The Battle and for his widow, and his orphan."
President Abraham Lincoln
"President Abraham Lincolns Second Inaugural Address (1865)
Lincoln presided over the nation’s most terrible crisis. The Civil War began 1 month after he took office and ended 5 days before he died. It was more bitter and protracted than anyone had predicted, costing more than 600,000 lives. In Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered just over a month before his death, he spoke about the war as he had come to understand it. The unspeakable savagery that had already lasted 4 years, he believed, was nothing short of God’s own punishment for the sins of human slavery. And with the war not quite over, he offered this terrible pronouncement:
"Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills
that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-men’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be
sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”
Finally, in the speech’s closing, with the immortal words of reconciliation and healing that are carved in the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital, he set the tone for his plan for the nation’s Reconstruction.
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive
on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle,
and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all." ~ Our Documents