Diuguid Undertakers During the Civil War

George A. Diuguid 1821-1893   The Diuguid mortuary was originally established in 1817 by Sampson Diuguid and a Mr. Winston. Their business, which is still in operation today, is the second oldest funeral home in the United States, and the oldest in the South. It was the only undertaking establishment in Lynchburg until the late 1860s. During the Civil War, Sampson Diuguid's son, George A. Diuguid ran the family business, which was responsible for both civilian and military burials. Diuguid and his workshop ultimately buried over 3000 Union and Confederate soldiers in Lynchburg, or sent their bodies home for burial. George Diuguid kept excellent records of every burial or removal during the war. He made notations of each soldier's name, military unit, place of death, date of burial, gravesite, and coffin or body measurements. His precise mortuary records enabled the federal goverment to remove the remains of 200 Union soldiers in 1866 to a national cemetery near Petersburg. They also enabled the women of the Lynchburg Confederate Memorial Association to mark each soldier's grave with its own headstone in the early twentieth-century.

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© 2004–2009 by Southern Memorial Association
Last updated
27 August 2009



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