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Confederate descendant and UDC member Miss Katherine Boone Hamilton speaking at the ceremony to unveil the
new headstone dedicated to her great-uncle, Mr. Anthony Boone CSA Veteran, at Skeetertown Cemetery,
near Suffolk, Virginia, USA.
(Photo courtesy of the Suffolk News-Herald) |
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More than 100 people of all skin tones gathered Saturday
to honor a Confederate veteran who was receiving a headstone for the
first time, more than 87 years after his death.
Anthony Boone enlisted in 1862 and served with the Peninsula Light
Artillery. His service took him to Lamberts Point, Portsmouth, Towne
Point, Suffolk, Richmond, Manassas and Gordonsville.
But unlike most people’s idea of a Confederate soldier, Boone was
black — born free as a direct descendant of Joe Skeeter, the European
land surveyor for whom the Skeetertown area was named.
“The decision to serve with the South baffled some,” said Katherine
Boone Hamilton, the great-great-niece of Anthony Boone. Her
great-grandfather, Jason Boone, Anthony’s brother, also served with the
Confederacy.
Saturday’s ceremony took place at the Skeetertown Cemetery,
established and cared for by the Missionary Lodge No. 1, which is still
in existence today. The lodge members cared for the sick and buried the
dead, Hamilton said, and you still have to be a lodge member to be
buried there.
The cemetery is located on Pitt Road, off Skeetertown Road. Many of
the graves bear the Boone name, and now there is one more stone with the
Boone name added to the list.
Joe Skeeter settled in Skeetertown, as it came to be known, in the
1700s. His daughter, Betsy Skeeter, had two interracial marriages, one
to a free black, according to Hamilton.
Her daughter, in turn, also married a free black, John Boone. They
were the parents of Anthony and Jason Boone, the Confederate soldiers.
One brother, William, served in the war with the U.S. Colored Troops.
“It really was brother against brother, and it didn’t make any
difference whether they were white or black,” said Frank Earnest,
heritage defense coordinator for the Virginia Division of the Sons of
Confederate Veterans.
Earnest said the reason blacks in the South would have taken up arms against the North is simple.
“What is so different about the black Confederate soldier? Absolutely
nothing,” he said. “They came together in defense of their native
land.”
Hamilton began her quest nearly two decades ago, when she learned her
great-grandfather served in the Confederacy. She contacted Lee Hart of
the Tom Smith Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and he helped
her obtain a gravestone for Jason Boone. That was in 1999.
Since then, she has also wanted to honor her great-great-uncle, Anthony Boone, for his service.
“He stayed until the end, when pay and food were scarce,” she said.
Flags fluttered at the Skeetertown Cemetery Saturday as the new stone
was unveiled, wreaths were placed, and Confederate re-enactors gave
salutes with muskets and a cannon. More than a dozen members of the
extended Boone family were present.
Opel Simmons III, the great-great-great-grandson of Jason Boone, said
the idea of his family members serving in the Confederacy has taken
some getting used to.
“It was a bit of reconciling history with modern-day feelings,” he
said. While many are taught to put the Civil War in terms of black
versus white, “They were defending what they knew to be their home,” he
said.
Earl Ijames, curator of the North Carolina Museum of History, was
guest speaker for the event. He said he has spent a lot of time
researching “colored” Confederates — those of American Indian and mixed
ancestry as well as blacks, he said — and educating people on their
existence. He presented a longleaf pine to the group.
Hamilton, having seen her goal completed, said the ceremony was “wonderful.”
Mike Pullen, lieutenant commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, said the Boone brothers are part of the Confederate family.
“Anthony Boone is one of the many men who is part of all of our family,” he said.
