Woodlawn Union Monument in the Bronx

I went up to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx early in November, 2023 to photograph Unions and Confederate generals buried there. What I did not know until I was about to leave the burial ground is that there is a Union monument on the grounds of the cemetery. If you go in through the main entrance, just bear right at the fork after you pass the administration office. The monument is on the right side of the road about a hundred yards in. The monument was erected in 1888 by the Oliver Tilden Post Number 96 of the Grand Army of the Republic, the largest Union veterans organization after the Civil War.

The cemetery is at the intersection of E. 233 Street and Webster Ave. in the Woodlawn neighborhood. The cemetery road is called “North Border Ave.” The cemetery is next to the Bronx River and I got there by traveling on the Bronx River Parkway.

The cemetery was opened in 1863 and while it is not a National Cemetery, many soldiers were buried here. Woodlawn was a village in Westchester County during the Civil War, but it was later annexed to the Bronx and became part of New York City.

The cemetery is extremely well-cared for with  many hills, trees, and several ponds.  While it does not have the same tourist visitation as Green-Wood in Brooklyn, there were a number of  people walking the paths there “to get out into nature” in the Bronx. I also saw several groups of bird watchers there observing the wildlife.

The Woodlawn Civil War monument includes a flagpole, the monument which is approximately twenty feet high. To the right of the monument is the grave of a local Civil War veteran.

The veteran, James McCord, died in 1898. Here is his tombstone with a marker identifying him as a “VETERAN 1861-1865.”

McCord’s descendant has posted some information about him. Here is what  he looked  like during the Civil War.

 

 

McCord enlisted in 1862 and he joined Company C, 6th Regiment Heavy Artillery New York State Volunteers. He was promoted to Sergeant Major in April 1865. After the war he worked as a carpenter and he died on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1898 at 1399 Fulton St. in the Bronx.

According to the website, there are seventeen veterans buried near the monument. They are Gottfried A Kretchmar, Henry Brooks, Thomas Ott, George A. Hafner, Adam Schwartz, John Steiner, Edward Brosche, Charles C. Stevens, William Price, Benjamin F. Demuth, William Spear, Valentine Felker, Peter Schneider, John. H. Wallace, William E. Raines, John W. Smith and George Gade. In the 19th Century, the neighborhood had many German immigrants.

 

The  monument was erected by the Oliver Tilden Post of the G.A.R. Oliver Tilden was a Union captain born in 1828. He enlisted in the army and died in 1862. Tilden lived in Morrisania, a small village in Westchester (now in the Bronx), and ran small carpentry shop on 162nd Street and Eagle Avenue in what is now The Bronx.  He organized Company E of the 38th Volunteer New York Infantry Regiment and he was appointed the company’s captain. The regiment was primarily from New York City or from areas that would be annexed by the city over  the next two decades. The second largest number of men came from Westchester. Companies also came from Geneva, Horseheads (in Western New York), and Elizabethtown.

In June of 1861, the regiment was mustered into United States service  and proceeded to Washington. It made it to Virginia in time to  advance on Bull Run, where it lost 128 in killed, wounded, and missing in that Union defeat. The regiment joined the Union Army of the Potomac and fought in many of its battles. Captain Tilden lost his life at the Battle of Chantilly, after the Second Bull Run, on September 1 of 1862. According to the New York City Department of Parks, Tilden “was buried in the Bensonia Cemetery on St. Anne’s Avenue. In 1878 his remains were transferred to Woodlawn Cemetery, making Tilden the first Civil War soldier to be buried there.” He is also the first Union soldier from Morrisania to die during the Civil War. The Village of Morrisania was founded just twenty years before the war.

 

The statue is clean and well-maintained, but the metal is in need of preservation.

Although this is a city cemetery, it has the appearance  of being a rural cemetery.

The details of the face and the hands made a big impression on me.

The soldier is a lone guard over the graves of  his comrades lain to rest.

 

As you can see, above the G.A.R. Post is the medal of the Grand Army of the Republic.

 

You can drive to Woodlawn Cemetery. There are plenty of parking spaces throughout. At the entrance, there are bathrooms open when the cemetery is open.

All color photos were taken by Pat Young. To see more sites Pat visited CLICK HERE for Google Earth view.

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