Stories in stone: Pass grave yields Civil War history
By KAT BERGERON
For 123 years the remains of Dr. John J. Thornton have lain in the moss-draped Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian.
Nothing on his headstone indicates he is in the Civil War history books, except perhaps acknowledgement that he was a "Patriot, Soldier, Philanthropist and Noblest of Fathers."
No one would know this forward thinker helped found the Mississippi University for Women and refused to sign Mississippi's ordinance to secede from the Union.
COURTESY WALLACE MASON The headstone of Dr. John Jones ‘J.J.' Thornton, who commanded the 6th Mississippi Infantry and retired as a pharmacist in Pass Christian, is in the Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian. His little known Civil War story will be told Saturday at his graveside.
But when war came his support went to the South and the pivotal Battle of Shiloh left him bloodied.
Like many stories in stone, this one remained untold in modern times. On Saturday historian and author H. Grady Howell Jr. will travel from Jackson to tell Thornton's story during a graveside memorial service organized by Sam Davis Camp 596, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Howell found a hint of Thornton's independent thinking in a scrapbook at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, where he works.
In it, Thornton pasted the words: "Men are like wagons. They rattle most when there is nothing in them."
"The colonel went into the Battle of Shiloh a healthy man," said Howell. "The regiment he led became the most bloodied field unit on either side of the battle, with 300 of his 425 men killed our wounded.
"The ferocity of that battle exhibited to the rest of the country that the South would not be a pushover and this would be a protracted, bloody war."
Because of injuries, Thornton resigned but remained an Army contract doctor. Then because of continued poor health, he moved his family to Pass Christian.
He died in 1886.
"We think there might be family in the area but we haven't been able to locate them," said Wallace Mason of Gulfport, Sam Davis Camp past commander.
"We know from the words on his headstone that in Pass Christian, he was a model citizen and we know that he was given a cannon salute at his funeral."
Thornton's headstone was knocked over but not broken by Hurricane Katrina. In its year-round efforts to maintain Civil War headstones, the local SCV discovered it, cleaned it and planned the July 25 ceremony to install a Southern Cross on the grave. The public is invited.
The Thornton ceremony will be followed Aug. 29 by another one at LeMaitre Cemetery in Moss Point at the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers who were friends.
Pvt. Joseph LeMaitre of the 27th Mississippi Infantry CSA and Pvt. Horace Canfield of the 75th New York Infantry will have color guards from both Sons of Union Veterans and SCV.
"The Sam Davis Camp feels it is important to do this cemetery work," Mason said, "to remember the men."
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1484902.html
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F. Stienstra.
By KAT BERGERON
For 123 years the remains of Dr. John J. Thornton have lain in the moss-draped Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian.
Nothing on his headstone indicates he is in the Civil War history books, except perhaps acknowledgement that he was a "Patriot, Soldier, Philanthropist and Noblest of Fathers."
No one would know this forward thinker helped found the Mississippi University for Women and refused to sign Mississippi's ordinance to secede from the Union.
COURTESY WALLACE MASON The headstone of Dr. John Jones ‘J.J.' Thornton, who commanded the 6th Mississippi Infantry and retired as a pharmacist in Pass Christian, is in the Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian. His little known Civil War story will be told Saturday at his graveside.
But when war came his support went to the South and the pivotal Battle of Shiloh left him bloodied.
Like many stories in stone, this one remained untold in modern times. On Saturday historian and author H. Grady Howell Jr. will travel from Jackson to tell Thornton's story during a graveside memorial service organized by Sam Davis Camp 596, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Howell found a hint of Thornton's independent thinking in a scrapbook at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, where he works.
In it, Thornton pasted the words: "Men are like wagons. They rattle most when there is nothing in them."
"The colonel went into the Battle of Shiloh a healthy man," said Howell. "The regiment he led became the most bloodied field unit on either side of the battle, with 300 of his 425 men killed our wounded.
"The ferocity of that battle exhibited to the rest of the country that the South would not be a pushover and this would be a protracted, bloody war."
Because of injuries, Thornton resigned but remained an Army contract doctor. Then because of continued poor health, he moved his family to Pass Christian.
He died in 1886.
"We think there might be family in the area but we haven't been able to locate them," said Wallace Mason of Gulfport, Sam Davis Camp past commander.
"We know from the words on his headstone that in Pass Christian, he was a model citizen and we know that he was given a cannon salute at his funeral."
Thornton's headstone was knocked over but not broken by Hurricane Katrina. In its year-round efforts to maintain Civil War headstones, the local SCV discovered it, cleaned it and planned the July 25 ceremony to install a Southern Cross on the grave. The public is invited.
The Thornton ceremony will be followed Aug. 29 by another one at LeMaitre Cemetery in Moss Point at the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers who were friends.
Pvt. Joseph LeMaitre of the 27th Mississippi Infantry CSA and Pvt. Horace Canfield of the 75th New York Infantry will have color guards from both Sons of Union Veterans and SCV.
"The Sam Davis Camp feels it is important to do this cemetery work," Mason said, "to remember the men."
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1484902.html
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F. Stienstra.
Stories in stone: Pass grave yields Civil War history
By KAT BERGERON
For 123 years the remains of Dr. John J. Thornton have lain in the moss-draped Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian.
Nothing on his headstone indicates he is in the Civil War history books, except perhaps acknowledgement that he was a "Patriot, Soldier, Philanthropist and Noblest of Fathers."
No one would know this forward thinker helped found the Mississippi University for Women and refused to sign Mississippi's ordinance to secede from the Union.
COURTESY WALLACE MASON The headstone of Dr. John Jones ‘J.J.' Thornton, who commanded the 6th Mississippi Infantry and retired as a pharmacist in Pass Christian, is in the Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian. His little known Civil War story will be told Saturday at his graveside.
But when war came his support went to the South and the pivotal Battle of Shiloh left him bloodied.
Like many stories in stone, this one remained untold in modern times. On Saturday historian and author H. Grady Howell Jr. will travel from Jackson to tell Thornton's story during a graveside memorial service organized by Sam Davis Camp 596, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Howell found a hint of Thornton's independent thinking in a scrapbook at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, where he works.
In it, Thornton pasted the words: "Men are like wagons. They rattle most when there is nothing in them."
"The colonel went into the Battle of Shiloh a healthy man," said Howell. "The regiment he led became the most bloodied field unit on either side of the battle, with 300 of his 425 men killed our wounded.
"The ferocity of that battle exhibited to the rest of the country that the South would not be a pushover and this would be a protracted, bloody war."
Because of injuries, Thornton resigned but remained an Army contract doctor. Then because of continued poor health, he moved his family to Pass Christian.
He died in 1886.
"We think there might be family in the area but we haven't been able to locate them," said Wallace Mason of Gulfport, Sam Davis Camp past commander.
"We know from the words on his headstone that in Pass Christian, he was a model citizen and we know that he was given a cannon salute at his funeral."
Thornton's headstone was knocked over but not broken by Hurricane Katrina. In its year-round efforts to maintain Civil War headstones, the local SCV discovered it, cleaned it and planned the July 25 ceremony to install a Southern Cross on the grave. The public is invited.
The Thornton ceremony will be followed Aug. 29 by another one at LeMaitre Cemetery in Moss Point at the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers who were friends.
Pvt. Joseph LeMaitre of the 27th Mississippi Infantry CSA and Pvt. Horace Canfield of the 75th New York Infantry will have color guards from both Sons of Union Veterans and SCV.
"The Sam Davis Camp feels it is important to do this cemetery work," Mason said, "to remember the men."
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1484902.html
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F. Stienstra.
By KAT BERGERON
For 123 years the remains of Dr. John J. Thornton have lain in the moss-draped Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian.
Nothing on his headstone indicates he is in the Civil War history books, except perhaps acknowledgement that he was a "Patriot, Soldier, Philanthropist and Noblest of Fathers."
No one would know this forward thinker helped found the Mississippi University for Women and refused to sign Mississippi's ordinance to secede from the Union.
COURTESY WALLACE MASON The headstone of Dr. John Jones ‘J.J.' Thornton, who commanded the 6th Mississippi Infantry and retired as a pharmacist in Pass Christian, is in the Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian. His little known Civil War story will be told Saturday at his graveside.
But when war came his support went to the South and the pivotal Battle of Shiloh left him bloodied.
Like many stories in stone, this one remained untold in modern times. On Saturday historian and author H. Grady Howell Jr. will travel from Jackson to tell Thornton's story during a graveside memorial service organized by Sam Davis Camp 596, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Howell found a hint of Thornton's independent thinking in a scrapbook at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, where he works.
In it, Thornton pasted the words: "Men are like wagons. They rattle most when there is nothing in them."
"The colonel went into the Battle of Shiloh a healthy man," said Howell. "The regiment he led became the most bloodied field unit on either side of the battle, with 300 of his 425 men killed our wounded.
"The ferocity of that battle exhibited to the rest of the country that the South would not be a pushover and this would be a protracted, bloody war."
Because of injuries, Thornton resigned but remained an Army contract doctor. Then because of continued poor health, he moved his family to Pass Christian.
He died in 1886.
"We think there might be family in the area but we haven't been able to locate them," said Wallace Mason of Gulfport, Sam Davis Camp past commander.
"We know from the words on his headstone that in Pass Christian, he was a model citizen and we know that he was given a cannon salute at his funeral."
Thornton's headstone was knocked over but not broken by Hurricane Katrina. In its year-round efforts to maintain Civil War headstones, the local SCV discovered it, cleaned it and planned the July 25 ceremony to install a Southern Cross on the grave. The public is invited.
The Thornton ceremony will be followed Aug. 29 by another one at LeMaitre Cemetery in Moss Point at the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers who were friends.
Pvt. Joseph LeMaitre of the 27th Mississippi Infantry CSA and Pvt. Horace Canfield of the 75th New York Infantry will have color guards from both Sons of Union Veterans and SCV.
"The Sam Davis Camp feels it is important to do this cemetery work," Mason said, "to remember the men."
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1484902.html
NOTE: no relation to B.E.F. Stienstra.
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