Video: Okolona Confederate Cemetery Renovations

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OKOLONA, Miss. (WCBI) – The Okolona Confederate Cemetery is undergoing much needed renovations.

People in the Chickasaw County town are getting ready to woo tourists for a major Civil War re-enactment in February.

“They got turned around and they were coming back through Okolona and the Confederates had gathered more men and they hit them hard at Okolona. And finally they had to, one of the worse fights out here at the Battle of Prairie Mount, which we are looking at right here,” said Andy Anderson, historian.

Soldiers resting in the cemetery, victims of a Civil War battle taking place just a stone’s throw near and even on the property of Okolona farmer Andy Anderson.

According to the war historian who will be one of over one thousand re-enactors converging on the area, paying tribute to the brave and committed resting there.

“This was a running battle, both sides were cavalry and they didn’t, maybe each side lost approximately between 75 to one hundred men. Its hard to say for sure. The, lot of the bodies weren’t recovered. They just lost them, buried them where they fell,” added Anderson.

There are unknown soldiers buried there.

But there are about 785 known graves.

For instance, Lewis Boyd, Company K. 38th Mississippi Infantry.

Boyd, like Andy Anderson had ancestors fighting for both the north and the south.

“We find bullets, and parts of saddles, and guns that still turns up when you working on the, digging a ditch or working on the creek bank. There are still artifacts that turn up. All over the place out here. The battle went on for miles and miles,” said Anderson.

Its been over 148 years now, and re-enactors are set to bring alive or at least try to let us see just how it was….the day those men fell, for what they considered a noble  cause.

The Battle of Okolona re enactment is set for February Twenty-First and 22nd, 2014.