Memorial Day for all Americans

	TRR photo by David Hulse (Click for larger image)

By DAVID HULSE

BARRYVILLE - Confederate Civil War re-enactors Charles Bertani, left, of Middletown, and Bill DeHaas of Andover, NJ are pictured at Monday's Memorial Day services at the old Barryville Congregational Church.

Bertani and DeHaas were among eight re-enactors from the locally-based 3rd Alabama Regiment who have appeared at the old, former churchyard for the past five years to help remember two real southern Civil War soldiers who are buried there.

Organizer Elliott Zucker of the Shohola Railroad and Historical Society said about 50 persons attended afternoon ceremonies at the now privately-owned graveyard. In addition to honors for the southern dead, flags were also placed at the graves of two former Union soldiers, also buried in the cemetery.

Pike County Historian George Fluhr said the historic graveyard is also suspected of containing several of the dead from the Revolutionary War battle of Minisink.

The Confederate soldiers, John D. Johnson of Co. B of the 31st North Carolina and his brother Michael Johnson of the 8th North Carolina were among more than 50 prisoners of war, Union guards and train crew killed in a train collision west of Shohola on July 15, 1864.

The Johnsons were injured in the wreck and died later while under care in local homes. Other injured were removed to the Elmira prison camp, where most of the dead were eventually buried in a common grave at the present day Elmira National Cemetery.