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Confederate fighters get Del. monument

Unveiling to be Saturday at Georgetown museum

By J.L. MILLER, The News Journal Posted Tuesday, May 8, 2007

GEORGETOWN -- The first historical monument to honor Delawareans who fought for the Confederacy will be unveiled Saturday in Georgetown.

The unveiling will be at noon on the grounds of the Nutter B. Marvel Museum on South Bedford Street, with ceremonies at the monument at 1 p.m.

The ceremonies will include speeches, a 21-gun salute, cannon salutes, and re-enactors will walk the grounds afterward.

"We've invited quite a few people. We're expecting close to 200," said Middletown resident Wayne Yarnall, publicity co-chair for the Seaford-based Delaware Grays Camp 2068 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

"We're going to have some descendants of the Delaware veterans there. They'll talk about what they know of their [ancestors]," said Yarnall, a descendant of Confederate Brig. Gen. William Yarnall Slack of Missouri.

Although the vast majority of Delawareans who fought in the war wore Union blue, an undetermined number -- possibly as few as 200 or as many as 2,000 -- fought for the Confederacy.

The Confederates' service went unheralded for well over a century before the Sons of Confederate Veterans decided that they deserved recognition, too.

The SCV is a nonprofit organization founded in 1896 to honor the memory of those who served honorably in the Confederate forces, and the Seaford camp reached an agreement last year with the Georgetown Historical Society to place the monument on the museum grounds.

The monument is a 9-foot-tall obelisk flanked by smaller stones bearing the names of Delawareans who served the South in a military or civilian capacity. Names will be added as they are documented.

One of those who served and whose name is included is a black man: David White, a slave from Georgetown who was traveling with his owner on a ship that was captured by the Confederate raider CSS Alabama on Oct. 9, 1862, near the Azores.

According to historical accounts, White voluntarily served as a mess steward aboard the Alabama and refused numerous opportunities to desert and gain his freedom.

White went down with the ship when it was sunk by the USS Kearsarge in June 1864 off Cherbourg, France.


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Edited to reflect correct location of CSS Alabama's sinking.  

--Last edited by lhsnj on 2007-05-08 14:29:16 --

Thanks Greg,

this is really interesting.

Yes, Deleware was a slave state. Also, their main economy was their ports. If Deleware would have seceeded, the Federals would have had them back in the Union in a big hurry and their ports.