More than 114 Confederate soldiers killed at the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) on September 17, 1862, or dying later of wounds in Shepherdstown, were buried in Elmwood Cemetery; they came from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, and many remain unknown. That year and every year afterward, local townspeople strewed flowers on their graves, an act believed to have initiated Confederate Decoration Day in October 1862; later, Confederate Memorial Day was observed on the first Saturday in June. The Southern Soldiers' Memorial Association placed an obelisk there in 1879 and 114 headstones in 1884, and the Henry Kyd Douglas Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans later erected a monument and bronze tablets bearing the names of 568 Southern soldiers from the area in 1937, with the State of West Virginia contributing $750. A total of 281 Confederate veterans are interred there, including Gen. W. W. Kirkland, Col. Henry Kyd Douglas, Alexander R. Boteler, Col. Isaac S. Tanner, Col. Isaac V. Johnson, Col. Wm. A. Morgan, Col. Wm. Fitzhugh Lee, widow Lily Lee, and Jeb Stuart's scouts Capt. Redman Burke, Capt. Matthew Leopold, and Lt. Henry Hagen. Henry Kyd Douglas, buried at the top of the hill, was born in Shepherdstown in 1838 and raised at Ferry Hill Place in Maryland across the Potomac River bridge; the youngest staff officer to Stonewall Jackson, he later became noted for I Rode with Stonewall, a memoir remembered as a warm and insightful account of the human side of Lee's commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia. An eyewitness to major events from 1859 to 1865, he unwittingly helped John Brown move a wagonload of weapons as a youth and later attended Brown's trial in Charles Town. After Virginia seceded, he enlisted in the 2nd Virginia Infantry, joined Jackson's staff, fought in the major Eastern battles from Manassas to Appomattox, was cited several times for bravery, was wounded twice, and was taken prisoner at Gettysburg. In 1864 he served on Gen. Jubal Early's staff in the Raid on Washington and later received command of Gen. A.P. Hill's Light Brigade, whose soldiers were the last to stack arms at Appomattox. After the war he was arrested for posing for a photograph in uniform, imprisoned in Washington D.C., and testified at the trial of the Lincoln conspirators; in later years he practiced law, served as a circuit judge in Maryland, died in 1903, and his book was published in 1940.
