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 Confederate Memorial Park is a recipe for Sweet Southern Lemonade, after being handed so many lemons over the course of several years!
In 1992, our Pt. Lookout POW Descendants Org. decided that we’d like to have a meaningful project of adding an additional plaque with names that were left off of the monument in the Pt. Lookout POW Confederate Cemetery located at the southern tip of Maryland's St. Mary's County. We asked the owners of the land, the Veteran Administration, if we could erect such a plaque and they turned us down because they didn't think we could meet their rigid specifications; however, they promised that they would do this in our stead! So, we gathered and turned in names to them. They promised and they promised, year after year, for 15 years and there still isn't a plaque!
In 1994, it was suggested that we erect a POW statue to the memory of our ancestors who were imprisoned in Pt. Lookout. We asked the Veteran Administration if we could put our statue in the cemetery and they turned us down, stating that there was already one in there. Although, I have yet to find such a statue!
So, then we went to the Pt. Lookout State Park Service and asked them if we could put up our statue in the pen area and all they did was pass the buck back and forth from Pt. Lookout to Annapolis and we never did get an answer...but we got the point.
Then, in 1998 after we had been flying the Confederate Flag in the cemetery for almost five years, with the Veteran Administration’s blessings, they decided (although no one had complained) that they didn't want us doing this and took down our flag from our ancestors’ grave. So now what we have is....no plaque, no statue and no flag!
We Southerners are slow to anger, but enough is enough and ... we've had enough.
 We needed our own property to fly the Confederate Flag and honor those brave southerners imprisoned in Point Lookout Prison. The founder of the Point Lookout POW Descendants Organization (PLPOW), Patricia Buck, contacted everyone who had land touching any part of the Pt. Lookout Cemetery, or within seeing distance of the property and asked them to please either donate, rent or sell some land to us. One lady was interested in perhaps selling the plot next to the cemetery; however, several years and many delays were put before us. But, our now CMPI chairman, Jim Dunbar, stayed in touch with the owner and the deal was finally sealed on the anniversary date of Appomattox, April 9, 2003.
The property for Confederate Memorial Park is adjacent to the Point Lookout Cemetery located in Scotland, Maryland. Located on State Route 5, the property is a corner lot also on the road to the original site of Point Lookout POW Camp for Confederates. Click here for the story about the land purchase and what we did on that day to erect a sign, flag pole, etc.
Rick Griffin, who has labored tirelessly to regain our constitutional right to fly our ancestors’ flag in the cemetery, gave our project its new name, Confederate Memorial Park. We raised over half of the money for our purchase through generous private donations of individuals and organizations, then borrowed the rest from a bank. Less than three months later, we were able to pay off our debt!
THANKS to each and everyone who gave to make this dream a reality.
Click here to view a listing of contributors to CMP: [Individuals] [Organizations]
Continued.....Phase II...what’s next...what will be in Confederate Memorial Park?!
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