Nova Scotians Honoured For Civil War Service

It is a little known piece of Canadian history that as many as 50,000 men from British North America, including 10,000 volunteers from the British colonies of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, served in Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. Many of those who returned went on to rise to prominent positions in the new country of Canada. Ben Jackson was a black Nova Scotian who served in the Union navy and was a veteran of several sea battles, including a battle in which he saved his ship by hurling a live shell overboard before it could explode. His heroic service to the Union was recognized by the unveiling of a memorial stone which was placed at his grave in Lockhartville, Nova Scotia as part of the Grave Marker Ceremony carried out by American Civil War re-enactors.

With a volley of three musket shots, Civil War hero Ben Jackson was finally relieved of his military duties.

Dignitaries from Nova Scotia’s black community, government representatives and hundreds of spectators joined I Company 20th Maine American Civil War re-enactors Saturday at the Stoney Hill Cemetery in Lockhartville, Kings County, to officially recognize Jackson as a war hero.

A black man, Jackson joined the Union navy to fight for the Union cause. Honourably discharged in 1865, he was awarded the Civil War Medal. He died in 1915.

He’s been interred in an unmarked grave for 95 years. A local committee recently purchased a gravestone to mark his burial place. It was officially unveiled during the ceremony.

At the start of the service, the gravestone was covered with a musket, knapsack and a Union Jack, which symbolized that Jackson was still on duty. During the ceremony, the musket and knapsack were removed before the flag was presented to Jackson family members in recognition of his status as a war hero.

The recognition allowed Jackson to be symbolically relieved of his duties.

Dr. Frederic Burgess was a young Nova Scotian who was studying at Harvard Medical School when the Civil War began. His class was graduated early because of the Union Army's need for doctors and he enlisted in 1865 as an Assistant Surgeon in the United States Medical Corps. He returned to Nova Scotia after the war and practiced medicine until his death in 1908. An Honor Guard from Company I, 20th Maine Volunteers under the command of Captain Bruce Barber and lead by Chaplain Peter Gillies conducted the Grave Marker Ceremony at Dr. Burgess' grave in Hantsport, Nova Scotia.

They stood at Antietam, they faced the heights of Donelson and Fredericksburg, and stood among the cedars at Stone's River, met the fearful shock at Shilo, became granite columns with the rocks of Chickamauga, formed a living wall against treason's mightiest power at Gettyburg, moved unfalteringly in the slaughter pens of Cold Harbor, and climbed up to rocky precipe and mountainside to the portals of glory on Lookout, and Mission Ridge. Or they stood pitching decks in rain soaked cloths: always at the mercy of the sea.

By: Shelldrake