Stonewall Jackson Cemetery Visit - Andrew Taylor

I had visited cemeteries before in my life, but never one dedicated to a specific person. For that reason, one the of the first things I looked for was how Stonewall Jackson's presence in memoriam had influenced the cemetery. If nothing else, his tombstone and statue physically dominated the space of the cemetery. Situated in the middle of the cemetery, in the middle of the intersection of the paved walking paths, he very clearly and intentionally dominated the cemetery. After spending some time reading his and his family's tombstone engravings I made my way to look at the smaller tombstones that populated the cemetery. One of the more interesting things I found was the extremely wide time range of deaths of the people buried in the cemetery. One tombstone was as recent as World War II, while another dated back to the 1700's. Unfortunately my phone had died by the time I found the latter of those two graves, but its discovery was remarkable non the less. I guess I had foolishly entered this brief, but enjoyable field trip with the assumption that all those buried there would be around the same time period as Stonewall Jackson. For that reason, I was very surprised to discover that Stonewall Jackson, whom the cemetery is named after, was alive and well while the cemetery had already existed.

My personal experience with the cemetery aside, I thought it was really interesting to hear how other people had analyzed the cemetery. I forget who it was, but someone pointed out how most of the gravestones curiously faced away from the entrance from Main Street. This was interpreted to mean that the original entrance of the cemetery must have been down the hill, away from Main Street. Entering from that side made the layout of the cemetery seem much more intentional. If entered from that side, Stonewall Jackson's massive tombstone became visible much earlier, and from the bottom of the hill you can see him standing against the backdrop of the sky, every facing Southward. One point of analysis that I found very interesting was the surprising popularity of obelisks as tombstones. I honestly don't recall seeing as many obelisks in other cemeteries I have visited, although I don't fully trust my memory there since I wasn't exactly looking for them like I was in the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery.

The picture I took (before my phone tragically died) are shown below.