Tales from the road: Finding General Alexander Hays

The impressive monument for Alexander Hays in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh
is ringed with buried cannon tubes.

                 Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter | My YouTube videos

No first visit for me to Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh would be complete without a stop at the grave of Alexander Hays.

“Look for the cannon tubes,” a friend advised me.

Even with that tip, the marker for the U.S. general killed during the Battle of the Wilderness proved elusive. Then, after passing a deer and geese exploring the grounds, I glanced to my left. And there he was …

Alexander Hays was killed at the
Battle of the Wilderness.
(Library of Congress)

In a plot ringed by sunken cannon tubes, the good general lies buried next to his wife, Annie.

Hays — who today has a hard apple cider named for him at the Arsenal Cider House in Pittsburgh — endured rumors of his drinking during the war. (Was he really drunk at the Battle of Morton’s Ford, or did those 14th Connecticut soldiers spread fake news?)

Rumors or not, the general received a funeral befitting a war hero.

In mid-May 1864, Hays' funeral procession passed through Pittsburgh neighborhoods. "One of the largest and most imposing ever seen in the city," a witness described the somber event.

"[A]ll along the route the pavement and windows were crowded with persons anxious to witness the last sad ceremonies of a brave and noble officer." the witness recalled. "The stores and principal business houses of the city were closed, in accord with the request of the Mayor, issued at the instance of some of our prominent citizens, and on every hand there was visible the deepest gloom."

In 1868, Ulysses Grant -- then a candidate for president -- visited Pittsburgh and asked to see the grave of his West Point classmate. After reading the inscriptions on Hays' monument, Grant spent a few minutes reflecting. Then, while sitting atop of the cannon tubes near the grave, the future president wept.

The weather for my Sunday visit was chameleon-like: foreboding, gray sky one minute, sunny the next.

 What a scene this site made then then ... and is now. 

Walk these grounds, an urban oasis in one of my favorite places in the whole, wide world.

Let’s keep history alive. 👊

Inscriptions on the front of the Hays monument.

Alexander Hays' grave marker in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh.

SOURCE

• Life and Letters of Alexander Hays, edited by George Thornton Fleming, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1919, Pages 616 and 658