She Sleeps Upon Her Field of Fame

With Memorial Day weekend approaching, I thought it appropriate to briefly share the account of one particular woman soldier who lost her life on May 17, 1863, during the Battle of Big Black River Bridge.  This was the last action before the Confederates retreated into Vicksburg.  I'll have to compose a more detailed account of the engagement itself at a later time.

Yesterday, I visited the site and reflected on this Confederate woman's death and others who shared a similar fate.  Like her sister soldiers who perished, her dead body was discovered by her foes.  And thus, we don't know anything about her.   The scant information available is courtesy Henry Clinton Parkhurst, an Iowa soldier who told of her discovery in his memoirs.  She was a "young woman," he said, and that the incident so moved him, that he composed a poem about it.

They buried her, Clint noted, in a grave "upon her field of fame."   And thus, she may still be resting there on the other side of this bridge where Confederates took up a defensive position.  (This isn't the Big Black River Bridge, by the way.)  I wasn't able to get a good picture, so I had to rely on Google Maps.

But just after crossing the bridge, I snapped this one:

It's just trees and brush — a common sight in any rural area — but it shows the location of the Confederate works, now overgrown.

......and perhaps the final resting place of a woman soldier.

Here is a video Mark and I did at Big Black about this unknown woman:

 

I talk about this woman in my book and shared Parkhurst's poem in full in a previous blog post, which you can read [HERE].  I highly recommend that you do.  The ending is quite poignant:

Her woes unknown, unknown her name

She sleeps upon her field of fame

No storied page her deeds will tell

But calm she sleeps

And all is well.

 

Until next formation....rest.