A young soldier of long ago remembered in Winder

WINDER - A young Kentucky soldier whose name was unknown for over a 100 years was memorialized Saturday in a ceremony at Rose Hill Cemetery in Winder.

Nineteen year old Martin Van Buren Parkhurst was the only Confederate soldier to die in one of the Civil War's lesser known engagements, the Battle of Jug Tavern, also known as the Battle of King's Tanyard, a short distance from present day Winder in Barrow County.

The day young Parkhurst met his end, August 3, 1864, marked the end of a failed attempt by federal cavalry under General George Stoneman to cut a vital rail line to Atlanta, under siege by three Union armies under William T. Sherman. Stoneman also wanted to liberate prisoners of war held at Macon and Andersonville, but he along with over 600 of his troopers wound up prisoners themselves.

On that day, remnants of that federal cavalry were routed and captured by a small force of cavalry from Kentucky. Nine Yankee horse soldiers died, Parkhurst was the only Rebel casualty and was buried at the battle site at the head of a spring on John King's property. Local history records he was buried to spoil the spring to spite King who ran a tanning yard and who was opposed to the war; Parkhurst was reburied in Winder over fifty years after the battle.

It was another 100 years or so before his relatives in Kentucky worked with local historians and confirmed his identity, and a veteran's granite grave stone bearing his name replaced the unknown soldier' marker.

"It's not very well known, it was a smaller battle, the big battle was taking place in Atlanta at this time," said researcher David Mann, a member of one of the Confederate re-enactment units who fired a salute over Parkhurst's grave.

"We're here to honor the men," Mann said. "Just like any service man we have out here today who serves their country, this man died fighting for his country. We have the sesquicentennial of the war coming up, this is something that happened locally, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to take this day and honor the memory of this soldier."

Following their musket salute the re-enactors, several of whom with Confederate ancestors belong to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, gathered around the Kentucky horse soldier's grave and reverently sang 'Dixie', then marched off to fire salutes at two other Confederate graves in the cemetery.

In downtown Winder a living history exhibit on the Civil War was set up at the Barrow County Museum, formerly the county jail, and impersonator and historian Eric Peterson from Snellville set out a display to represent the Northern side of the conflict. Peterson, a member of the Sons of Union Veterans, portrays Major General George Thomas, commander of the federal Army of the Cumberland.

He was in a general's dark blue wool uniform dress and like his Confederate counter parts in their gray wool and cotton uniforms, was struggling with the warm, sultry July heat. The Army of the Cumberland was the largest of Sherman's three Atlanta Campaign forces. After a short time under the hot sun in front of the museum, Peterson joined other re-enactors and shed that bulky coat.

"I think it's important to get the story out from both sides," Peterson said, acknowledging that the Battle of Jug Tavern was not a federal victory.

"They almost got surrounded and had to fight their way out but the command was chopped up pretty badly," Peterson said. "Stoneman's Raid convinced Sherman that his cavalry could not accomplish what he wanted. This was like so many battles that happened around that campaign, there were indecisive little skirmishes, but troops still died there and that happened every day during the Civil War."

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