Kin: Confederate's gravestone in Elmira has wrong name

• Confederate soldier said to be buried at Woodlawn National Cemetery with wrong name on headstone
• Soldier whose name is on gravestone said to have died in 1924 and is buried in Norwood%2C N.C.
• National Cemetery Administration won%27t correct inscriptions on gravestones more than 50 years old

The gravestone of a Confederate soldier who died at Elmira's Civil War prison camp has the wrong name on it, according to his great-great-grandson.

Pvt. Franklin Cauble died in the prison camp but was mistakenly buried at Woodlawn National Cemetery under the name of Pvt. Franklin Cooper, according to Tom Fagart, of Concord, N.C., in an e-mail to the Star-Gazette.

"(Cauble and Cooper) were friends, enlisted in Albemarle, N.C., on the same day, served together, (were) captured at Petersburg the same day, sent to Point Lookout Prison the same day, sent to the Elmira prison (camp) the same day, but Pvt. Franklin Cauble did not live to be paroled at the end of the war," he said.

Fagart said he has documentation proving the gravestone is incorrect. He has posted online military records from the prison camp for both men: Cauble's record indicates he died of dysentery on Oct. 28, 1864, while Cooper's record shows he was released July 3, 1865.

Cauble was about 39 years old when captured on June 3, 1864, and sent to Point Lookout, Md. He was moved July 12, 1864, to the Elmira prison camp and subsequently died there. He is buried in plot No. 718 in the cemetery's Confederate section, Fagart said.

Cooper, who died Oct. 2, 1924, is buried in Silver Springs Baptist Church Cemetery in Norwood, N.C., Fagart said, adding that Cooper applied for and received a military pension.

"Pvt. Franklin Cauble is buried in the Woodlawn National Cemetery under the name of his friend Pvt. Franklin Cooper, and the Veterans Administration will not correct this horrible mistake and give Pvt. Franklin Cauble the proper recognition he deserves," Fagart said. "Their excuse has been that the markers on all the Confederate graves are historical and will not be replaced."

According to the National Cemetery Administration of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the government may replace newer headstones or markers if the inscription is incorrect. However, historic headstones more than 50 years old will not be replaced to correct inscription inaccuracies discovered through modern research, the cemetery administration said.

Requests for replacement of historic headstones are honored only when inscriptions are worn to the point that they can no longer be read or if the headstone is otherwise damaged beyond repair, the cemetery administration said. In that case, corrections might be made at the time of replacement.

Fagart would like to see a new headstone on his great-great-grandfather's grave site.

"If you can help to correct his terrible injustice, I am sure that Pvt. Franklin Cauble would be most appreciative. I know his great-great-grandson would," he said.

"I cannot tell you how happy I was a couple years ago to find my great-great-grandfather Cauble. I am now 71, and Pvt. Cauble has been lost all these years," Fagart said.

He remembers as a child hearing his grandfather Cauble — grandson of Franklin — telling him that his grandfather went off to the war and never came home.

"He did not know what happened to him other than family legend," Fagart said. "I can't tell you how much time I have spent digging for information to find Franklin Cauble."

Martin Chalk, president of Friends of the Elmira Civil War Prison Camp Inc., said he was not aware of the gravestone issue but will look into it.

Elmira's Civil War prison camp operated from July 6, 1864, until July 11, 1865, incarcerating a total of 12,121 Confederates. Insufficient food, extreme bouts of dysentery, typhoid, pneumonia, smallpox, inadequate medical care and flooding of the Chemung River resulted in the deaths of 2,963 prisoners, a mortality rate of about 25 percent. Prisoners dubbed the camp "Hellmira."

The Confederate section of Woodlawn Cemetery, where prisoners who died at the prison camp were buried, became Woodlawn National Cemetery on Dec. 7, 1877. In 1907, the government replaced the original wooden markers with marble headstones.

Follow Ray Finger on Twitter: @SGRayFinger.