Road Trip Finds

We're about 20 miles south of downtown Louisville and since they are gearing up for Thunder on the River this weekend and have a bunch of road closures and detours we decided to just do some exploring south of the city.

I guess you could call today's trip a Grave trip because that's what we found, some extremely interesting grave sites. Our first discovery was at Long Run Cemetery located about 15 miles east of Louisville. This was the site of one of the first Baptist churches in the territory and the foundation is still present in the center of the cemetery. The main draw to this cemetery is that Abraham Lincoln's Grandfather who he was named after is buried here.

Notice the original spelling, you could have been driving around town in a Linkhorn.

While we were walking around the cemetery we found four more Revolutionary War Veterans buried here, Lincoln's Grandfather was also a Rev. War Vet.

And then we spotted another marker that was The Great Uncle of Harry S Truman.

But we're saving the best for last. Just under a mile west on Simpsonville, Kentucky, on US-60, is a much newer cemetery, this one was dedicated January 26^th 2009. It's small and only has 22 stones but it marks the mass grave of 22 members of the 5^th U.S. Colored Cavalry who were massacred here on January 25^th 1865, by a group of southern guerrillas.

Click to enlarge

In Memory of 22 members of the 5th USCC

For History or Military buffs, there is a very interesting web page that tells the story of the massacre and the effort by locals and ancestors to make this monument come about.

5th U.S. Colored Cavalry at Simpsonville, Kentucky 

Be sure to scroll down on this site to the story of what happen.

The 5^th USCC was also present at the two Battles of Saltville a year earlier. In the first battle a large number of troops (40-80) that were left wounded on the battlefield were executed by Confederate troops.

Another great day of wandering through history.