I wanted to dedicate an entire blog post to the Members of the Armed Forces. We have come across many, many military graves located around the county. For such a small area we have certainly produced a proud number of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines.

In addition to the hundreds of World War I and II service members laid to rest in Dorchester County, there are a notable number of military gravestones from Vietnam, and Korea, as well as campaigns as far back as the Spanish American War, the Civil War, the War of 1812, and even the American Revolution. The Revolution graves are usually marked with a medallion so as to be properly identified.

Christ Church in Cambridge has a row of such graves. The medallion reads SAR 1775. Sons of the American Revolution.

                             

The monument on the left is for a French born sailor who served in the Spanish American War and the monument on the right is for the first man from Dorchester County to die in World War I. His ship was torpedoed off the coast of Scotland and he died on a life raft a few hours after the explosion from his injuries and exposure. He volunteered for service.

This crypt is for a young man who died in Coblenz, Germany during the United States Marine Corps campaigns during World War I. A fact of note is that this is the only above ground crypt in the entire graveyard.

This graveyard is the final resting place for what appears to be three brothers who all served in the War of 1812. The 1812 Service Members are also identified with a marker. Sadly no further information is available for this family. I will have to do some more research and hopefully bring more of their narrative to light.

               

Everyone has heard the phrase “Brother against Brother” when speaking about the Civil War; Dorchester County had Father against Son.

 This humble stone is the marker for Lieut. Colonel Thomas Woolford, leader of the 4th Maryland Regiment during the American Revolution. Wounded and taken prisoner in the Battle of Camden, SC, he was also part of the campaign to free Charleston from the British.

All of these stories are either amazing, heroic, tragic, or moving. They all deserve to be told. And yet, this is just a handful of the monuments around the county. This project has only covered about half of the area of the county, so there are still a great many more resting places as yet unmapped.

All of the information for these brave soldiers was gleaned from the monuments themselves or from 5 minutes on Google. If this much information was uncovered in such a short amount of time I would love to see what could be accomplished by a dedicated researcher.