Free program! On Saturday, January 22 at 10 AM, Old City Cemetery Marketing Manager & Historian Michael Hudson will be livestreaming on Facebook a virtual talk that tells the fascinating story of one of the Cemetery’s “residents” – a veteran of the Civil War and Prisoner-of-War camp survivor.
Twenty-two-year-old Cornelius Gilliam enlisted as a conveyance driver in Blount’s Lynchburg Battery only a fortnight after the opening salvo of the Civil War was fired at Ft. Sumter. He made it all the way through the war only to be captured six days before the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Had he been present with Lee’s Army on that April 9, 1865, he would have been paroled and allowed to return home. Unfortunately for him, however, he was captured and sent to a POW camp in New York Harbor. Gilliam would spend more than two months there.
Hudson will be live-streaming an illustrated talk of Cornelius Gilliam’s wartime experiences. To find the talk, just pull up Old City Cemetery’s Facebook page at 10 AM on Saturday, January 22. There is no need to pre-register. If viewers cannot be online at that date and time, they can access the previously recorded video on the OCC Facebook page. OCC friends who do not use Facebook can obtain a copy of the video via e-mail by contacting Hudson at his e-mail address: mike@gravegarden.org . He would be very pleased to share a copy of the video after the presentation has been recorded on January 22.
Fresh research and new perspectives on several aspects of the war will help inform listeners’ perceptions of what life as a Civil War soldier was like. Also, Hudson’s relationship to the subject of the presentation is a unique one – he is the 3x great-grandson of Gilliam.
Hudson says, “I really look forward to discussing my historical research pertinent to an Old City Cemetery resident who has a personal connection to me. Everyone buried at OCC has a story to tell and this is one of many stories that I look forward to sharing.”