East Baton Rouge County Louisiana Archives News.....Their Final Rest. (Barracks Cemetery burials moved to the National Cemetery) January 27, 1883
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Lora Peppers loradpeppers@hotmail.com May 24, 2007, 10:15 am

Ouachita Telegraph (Monroe, LA) January 27, 1883
Ouachita Telegraph
Saturday, January 27, 1883
Page 1, Column 5

                        THEIR FINAL REST.
                       [Baton Rouge Truth.]
     At last it may with truth be said of the remains of the soldiers and their 
relatives who were interred in the Barracks Cemetery that:
     "On fame's eternal camping ground,
           The silent tents are spread,
      And glory guards with solemn round 
          The bivouac of the dead."
for they now rest in the National Cemetery, from which, in all probability, 
they will never be removed.  The twenty-one tombs at the Barracks contained the 
remains of twenty-five persons, the names of whom have already been published 
in the Truth.  For them,
     "The neighing steed, the flashing blade,
          The bugle's stirring blast,
     The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
          The din and shout are past."
and they sleep under the stones originally erected over their graves.  With few 
exceptions, little remained of the bodies beyond a mass of crumbling bones.  
The body of First Lieut. John A. Mebane, however, which was buried in an iron 
coffin, was as perfect as if only recently interred.  This fact was ascertained 
by sliding back the lid covering the glass over the face.  The remains of Capt. 
Thomas Barker, were also in a fair state of preservation; but of Dr. B.F. 
Harney and Capt. James M. Morgan, and the others, the bones alone remained.  
Some of the bodies had been originally brought from far to rest among those of 
their deceased comrades, in order that:
     "Their own proud land's heroic soil
          Shon'd make their fitter grave;
     She claimed from war his riches spoil - 
          The ashes of the brave."
     Of the twenty-five, four are classed as unknown.  Two of these, however, 
are the remains of the two young lieutenants, Rogers and Miles, of one of the 
first - if not the first - United States regiments which came to Baton Rouge 
after the withdrawal of the Spaniards, the details of which event are now 
familiar to our readers as a matter of history.  Lieut. Rogers received a 
slight from his comrade at a social gathering, and a duel with pistols 
resulted.  The combatants met within the barracks, and fell dead at the same 
shot.  No clue exists towards the identification of the other two unknown.  
They formerly occupied the same grave, but now sleep in separate earth beds, 
where:
     "No rumor of the foe's advance
          No swells upon the wind,
     No troubled thought at midnight haunts
          Of loved ones left behind,"
and where
     "No visions of the morrow's strife,
          The warrior's dream alarms
     No braying horn, nor screaming fife
          At dawn shall call to arms."

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