Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Odd site in a cemetery in Norwich, Connecticut

Final resting place for Confederate soldier Francis Goddard in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn.

In a cemetery filled with graves of Union veterans and the Civil War governor of Connecticut, you'll find the final resting place of a real rebel. Really. Under the shade of a large tree in Yantic Cemetery in Norwich, Conn., I found the gravestone for Francis Adams Goddard, a sergeant in the First Alabama Light Artillery. Goddard was from Norwich, but his mother was from Alexandria, Va., a possible explanation for why he enlisted in the Confederate army on April 24, 1861. The two markers for Goddard, not far from memorial stones for Norwich soldiers who died at Andersonville prison in Georgia, are decorated with the rebel battle flag, an unusual site in a cemetery in the North., Goddard first served as a corporal in the 3rd Alabama Infantry. A prisoner of war during the Civil War, he died in New York on Aug. 17, 1884. This soldier's life could be a nice research project.

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