Haitianone
Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 16135
Location: BOSTON,MA
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 Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 8:33 pm Post subject: Haitian Civil War Veteran Honored |
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Another ceremony today honored a Civil War Veteran. The first African American Civil War soldier was honored with a government-issued headstone in Savannah.
Louis Noisette was a 3rd generation Haitian-American born in Savannah. At age 16 he joined the Union Army freeing him from slavery. Years later he died in Savannah in 1881 and was buried at Laurel Grove South Cemetery. His grave originally had a regular gravestone nothing acknowledging his service during the Civil War. But that changed today. We were with his family as they joined together to honor Louis' legacy.
As the choir sang, dozens of friends and family gathered at the Laurel Grove South Cemetery to honor Louis Noisette, a Hatian American who fought in the Civil War. Carmen Sims, one of Noisette’s great, great granddaughters says this of her relative, "I'm extremely proud of my great, great grandfather for his contribution to get in there and physically put his life on the line."
Lex Musta is with the African American Civil War Museum in Washington D.C. and has been working to get this grave stone for four years, "We have a marked grave for the Noisette family on their Noisette family plot and that was a great sense of joy and excitement and relief."
The revealing has brought family from all over the world together. Many of which had never met the rest of their relatives. Carmen says she is overwhelmed with the event, "It unifies us as a family. It's um, kind of a very soul searching experience for me." And she says that this experience has changed her for the rest of her life "It centers me, it really grounds me. It means everything to me. I'm going to leave an entirely different person."
There were more than 200,000 black civil war soliders. Not only is Louis Noisette's marker the first African American Civil War marker in Savannah, organizers there today tell us it's the first Hatian American Civil War marker in the nation.
http://www.wsav.com/midatlantic/sav/news.apx.-content-articles-SAV-2007-11-11-0002.html
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