May 28 Ceremony To Rededicate Restored Athens Monument to Civil War Soldiers

For Immediate Release
contact:
Carl Denbow
camp108suv@fastmail.net
(740) 591-8471

The public is invited to the May 28 rededication of a refurbished marker in Union Street Cemetery saluting Athens’s “Boys in Blue” — the community’s Civil War soldiers — buried there.

The ceremony, on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the cemetery, whose entrance is at the corner of West Union and Shafer streets in Athens.

The keynote speaker will be Athens lawyer and Civil War historian William Walker. Also appearing at the rededication will be Athens Mayor Steve Patterson, and state Rep. Jay Edwards, of Nelsonville.

The monument was dedicated in 1938 by the Daughters of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, “in memory of our fathers, the Boys in Blue.” Some 2,610 Athens County residents served in the Union Army from 1861 to 1865.

The ceremony will include Civil War music climaxed by musicians and the audience joining in singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
The monument’s restoration was sponsored by the Athens area’s John S. Townsend Camp 108 of the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War. Funding for the restoration of the Boys in Blue monument was provided by the Board of Athens County Commissioners.

-30-