Cemeteries on the Trace

I still haven’t figured out why, but I think cemeteries are fascinating.  This is the cemetery beside the church in Rocky Springs.

This is the family cemetery of Cowles Mead.  He started as an inn owner but was also governor of the Mississippi Territory.  One thing he is famous for is ordering the arrest of former Vice President Aaron Burr for treason though Burr was acquitted.

This is from an early settler cemetery. The stones are all new and flat in the ground.

 

 

This one is very weird.  There are 13 unknown Confederate soldiers buried here.  Each one has flowers and Confederate flags by it.  That’s not the weird part.  Each one has rocks and coins on top the stone.  Why?  I know the Jewish faith will add stones to strengthen the memory, but I saw nothing to say these were Jewish Confederates.  And coins?  Was money recently added to take to the next world like in ancient burials?  Or to pay for the crossing of the River Styx to the Underground?  Is this supposed to be like a wishing well?  We saw pennies on Benjamin Franklin's grave, but I’ve never heard of putting change on anyone else's grave stone.

Since we saw this I looked this up on the internet. Back in Roman times, coins were left on the graves of the military.  This was changed to flowers years ago. In the U.S., apparently there has been a tradition since the Vietnam War to again put coins on the gravestones of soldiers. From http://kygl.com/tradition-of-coins-left-on-the-gravestone-of-a-soldier/  "As for meanings of different denominations of coins. A friend, or an acquaintance that visits may only leave a penny. A nickel would be left by someone that may have been through boot camp, or trained with them, while someone that served in another platoon in the same company may leave a dime. A quarter would be left by someone that served in the same outfit, or was with the soldier when they died."  I'm pretty sure no one who served with these soldiers were here. but we saw plenty of quarters.
 

 

This is the Stones River National Cemetery with over 6,000 Union soldiers.