By Clay Wirestone | opinion editor
Good morning! I saw a few close college friends yesterday afternoon, and it’s always lovely to chat with folks from the past who are doing well in the present — and have grand plans for the future. Love to them all. Now, the Sunday newsletter.
Max McCoy / Kansas Reflector
OPINION
A Kansas memorial lists 15 Black soldiers killed during the Civil War. Their lives are a mystery.
By Max McCoy
FORT SCOTT — At the national cemetery there is peace.
There is no news to report, no current affairs to parse, no urgent interview requests awaiting any of the 8,000 inhabitants. All the battles have been fought, the costs tallied, the names and the dates etched into marble stones 13 inches wide and 4 inches thick. The stones stand in regimented rows across the cemetery’s 28 acres of rolling hills.
On this afternoon in May, the scudded sky seems particularly broad and the hills unusually green. The only sound is the wind whispering through the trees and animating the flag at half-staff on the cemetery’s highest point.
Officially designated as National Cemetery No. 1 and established Nov. 15, 1862, it was the first among the 14 cemeteries designated by Abraham Lincoln to accommodate the grim harvest of the Civil War. Like many other national cemeteries, including the one at Gettysburg, the Fort Scott site is administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The first military burials were of those who died of accident or disease at the federal military post that gave this town in southeastern Kansas its name. In addition to the fort, there was also a two-story military prison here, so some of the early occupants were Confederates who died as prisoners. It wasn’t a national cemetery to begin with, but the “Presbyterian Graveyard” at the edge of town, and the first graves were marked with wooden boards and stakes, according to its National Register of Historic Places registration.
Only a few hundred of those interred here died in combat, as the vast majority of plots are those of veterans and their spouses, from the Civil War era to the present day. The most famous grave, if there can be fame in death, is not marked by a flat white standing stone, but by a red sandstone boulder.
Utah News Dispatch
Data center battles started in the states. Now it’s Congress under siege.
WASHINGTON — Higher electric rates? Massive data centers looming over neighborhoods? Ugly political fights over what to do about them?
The future of data centers and their huge appetite for electricity is quickly escalating as a political flashpoint from coast to coast, moving from cities and states now to the nation’s capital.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Kansas Reflector staff will participate in the following free public forums.
6:30 p.m. June 12, Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. Opinion editor Clay Wirestone will join a panel discussion: "From the Desk of William Allen White: What Can Journalism Today Learn from the Sage of Emporia?"
5:30 p.m. June 16, Bradbury Alumni Center at Washburn University in Topeka. Editor-in-chief Sherman Smith will lead a discussion on the proposed constitutional amendment to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices. Host: Kansas Appleseed. Register here.
6 p.m. June 24, Groover Labs in Wichita. Editor-in-chief Sherman Smith will lead a discussion on the proposed constitutional amendment to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices. Host: Kansas Appleseed. Register here.
6 p.m. June 25, Clint Bowyer Community Building in Emporia. Editor-in-chief Sherman Smith will lead a discussion on the proposed constitutional amendment to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices. Host: Kansas Appleseed. Register here.
7 p.m. June 27, Park City Senior Center. Host: Park City Community Pride.
2 p.m. Sept. 27, Red Rocks Visitor Center in Emporia. Host: Red Rocks.
If you're interested in having us talk in your town, email Sherman Smith at [email protected].
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