Re-enactment scheduled at Rose Hill Cemetery

By Staff
Special to The Star
March 29, 2002
A re-enactment of the first "Decoration Day" or "Memorial Day" is scheduled Saturday at Rose Hill Cemetery, located at Eighth Street and 40th Avenue. The program begins at 10:30 a.m. and is sponsored by the Winnie Davis and Robert E. Lee Chapters of the UDC, N. B. Forrest and W. D. Cameron Camps of the SCV, and Friends of Rose Hill Cemetery and the Benevolent Fund.
Organizers said the program will be structured to provide entertainment, educational and historical information and to instill within the participants a sense of pride in Mississippi and her people.
The event at Rose Hill Cemetery will include a short speech describing the origin of Confederate Memorial month and our nation's holiday, Memorial Day, celebrated each year on May 30. Emphasis will be placed on the special day's origination in Columbus in April 1866. Ladies in antebellum dress will place flowers upon the graves of some of the Confederate dead and on the grave of Charles Rubush, the only known Union soldier buried within the grounds of the cemetery. Soldiers in period dress will also participate.
For additional information, contact Ward Calhoun Sr. at the Lauderdale County Department of Archives and History at 482-9752, or Bill East, Friends of Rose Hill Cemetery in West Point at (662) 492-0505.