VERNON, CT — In Vernon’s Grove Hill Cemetery lies a memorial to a Union army officer who is certainly worthy of a mention every Juneteenth.
The “grave” of Capt. Edwin Post lies in a cluster that is the final resting place — at least in spirit in Pope’s case — for several Civil War soldiers. Not too far away, in the Rockville section of town, sits the New England Civil War Museum and Research Center in a fully preserved Grand Army of the Republic Hall, where veterans met after the conflict.
Post never made it to the meetings — and to his actual gravestone. He was killed in action on Aug. 16, 1864 at the age of 24.
His gravestone, though, tells us he gave the last full measure of devotion outside Petersburg in Virginia, some eight months after President Abraham Lincoln coined the famous phrase during his address at Gettysburg.
“He was buried with the Rebel dead,” while serving as a commander in a regiment of Black troops, the Vernon gravestone inscription reads.