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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 us some land.
One lady was interested in perhaps selling us 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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