Angel of Stonewall Cemetery, Griffin, Georgia 1989

Beside New Oak Hill, where shadows softly creep,

A field of stone guards men who lie asleep.

From battles fought near Atlanta and Jonesboro’s line,

The Stonewall Cemetery holds its sad design.

The land was granted long ago, in eighteen forty,

A silent promise made to those whose fate was stormy.

Hundreds of Confederates found their final bed,

And just one lonely Yankee rests among the dead.

The Ladies Memorial Association sought to build,

A tribute to the lives the cruel war had killed.

Their love conceived a monument so grand,

The first in Georgia from a caring hand.

The great stone shaft was finished eighteen sixty-nine,

Where four stern cannons guard the solemn sign.

It says, “In memoriam our Confederate Dead,”

A pledge of honor whispered overhead.

The Angel stands upon the granite tall,

She watches over soldiers, answering the call.

But her arrival holds a story strangely clear,

That echoes down across the passing year.

The marble form had been ordered long ago,

For a family plot before the bloody flow.

But the Northern blockade, strong upon the sea,

Delayed her passage to this liberty.

When peace was signed, and shipping could proceed,

The family’s need could not fulfill the deed.

They could not pay the sum she now would cost,

So the Angel came to honor souls that had been lost.

Her eyes now look upon the silent, grassy lanes,

Where only quiet dust and memory remains.

She guards the Synodical College wounded poor,

And whispers, “Rest! Soldier! Rest,” forevermore.

She sees the verses carved upon the stone,

“Now sleep the brave, who sink to rest alone.”

The promise of the laurel leaf, a shining green,

By that lone Angel, mournfully is seen.