Visiting Florence National Cemetery & The Grave Of Florena Budwin

After attending the Confederate Memorial Day service at Mount Hope Cemetery in downtown Florence, South Carolina (mentioned in my previous blog post) I drove about a half-mile down the road to visit the Florence National Cemetery -- as well as visit a specific grave on the site.

Florence National Cemetery is a 25 acre U.S. National Cemetery that contains the graves of over 12,000 U.S. military soldiers and veterans from various American wars. The National Cemetery is administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Florence National Cemetery began its history as a burial site for Union prisoners of war interred at the nearby Florence Stockade during the War Between The States (1861-1865).

Florence Stockade was built in late September of 1864 by the Confederate military. Most of these were Union prisoners transferred to the site by rail from the infamous Camp Sumter (better known to history as Andersonville after the nearby town in Georgia) ahead of Union General William T. Sherman's March To The Sea. The rest were either Union soldiers, or sailors, captured in actions at Charleston and the North Carolina coastal regions.

Of the estimated 12,000 to 18,000 Union prisoners of war held at Florence Stockade around 2,300 died of various camp diseases and harsh camp conditions during the five month period the stockade was in service. These prisoners were buried in 16 trenches half-a-mile from the stockade's boundaries on what would become the site of the National Cemetery. The Florence Stockade was abandoned by the end of February 1865, with most of the remaining prisoners being transferred north to the POW camp in Salisbury, North Carolina until the end of the War two months later.

The site of the burial trenches became a National Cemetery in 1865 with the remains of other Union soldiers from nearby American Civil War battlefield cemeteries were transferred and reburied there, bringing the number of Union war dead buried on site to around 3,000 men -- and one woman.

The woman buried among the Union dead is known to history as Florena Budwin.

According to the accounts of her story, Florena was a young woman possibly born about 1844 from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who dressed up as a Union soldier so she could find and serve with her husband, a Union army officer. The couple supposedly served briefly together before he was either killed in battle, or dying in prison at Camp Sumter in mid-1864.

Budwin was then shipped by train with other Union POWs to Florence Stockade where she became ill with pneumonia and the camp physician, Doctor Josephus Hall, discovered her gender. She was provided with separate quarters and women in town provided her with women's clothing. Florena recovered and chose to remain near the stockade to help the local women nurse the sick prisoners and prison guards at the adjacent Wayside Hospital.

Sadly, Florena Budwin again fell ill and died at the Wayside Hospital on Wednesday, January 25, 1865. She is buried at the site of the Union trenches (Section D, Site 2480 of the National Cemetery), with her lone gravestone in the middle of one of the two large bare patches of land marking the site of the trenches. Her grave is a simple Union soldier's grave marker that bears her name and the date of her death.

Florena Budwin is believed to be the first woman to be buried in a U.S. National Cemetery.

The following are the photos I took of my visit to Florence National Cemetery. 

The grave of Private Florena Budwin listing the date of her death.
Note the copper pennies on top of her marker -- a show of respect
for her service.

I would like to add one more interesting story and connection between the Florence National Cemetery and your favorite blogger personally.

On the Roll of the Known Confederate Dead of Chester County, South Carolina which I reposted for this year's Confederate Memorial Day (May 10th) in memory of the 375 men and boys from my home county who did not survive the War Between The States, at number 362 you will find the name Private Theodore D. Wise. He was from Chester and served as in Company E, 3rd Battalion SC Reserves -- which served as camp guards at Florence Stockade during its existence. Many of the guards were members of the reserve units who were aged 15 to 17 years old.

Sadly, Private Wise would contract measles during an outbreak at the Stockade and pass away at the Wayside Hospital on Monday, December 26, 1864 at the age of 15 -- the youngest Confederate soldier from Chester County to die in the War. Theodore Wise place of burial is unknown -- although he's possibly buried in the mound at nearby Mount Hope Cemetery with the other Unknown Confederate Dead.

Theodore Wise died at the same hospital where Florena Budwin served as a nurse ministering to the sick before her own tragic death from disease a month later. It makes me wonder: did they know each other in that time? Did she offer him comfort as a nurse as he passed away? We can never truly know. Still, its interesting the way threads of history seem to intertwine along with the lives of those who lived it.

I went to Florence to honor and remember the sacrifices and services of both the Confederate dead honored on Confederate Memorial Day (May 10th) and the Union dead who will be honored later this month on U.S. Memorial Day (May 26th this year) -- all of them our American dead.

None of them are forgotten.