Florence National Cemetery, Lodge, 803 East National Cemetery Road, Florence

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-2-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

803 East National Cemetery Road, Florence, Florence County, South Carolina. The coordinates for Florence National Cemetery are W and N, and they were obtained in August with, it is assumed, NAD There is no restriction on the release of the locational data to the public.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-2-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was known as the Veterans Administration. The Veterans Administration took over management of Florence National Cemetery from the U.S. Army in (Public Law Date: razed Builder/Contractor: Unknown. Description: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General reveal that Francis D. Smith constructed a temporary frame lodge on the cemetery grounds in The wood lodge was privately built and was used until late in In a one-story, brick lodge on a linear plan was erected.

In a two-story, frame Four-Square was built; this building was demolished in The Four-Square lodge built in was lit by kerosene, not receiving electricity until when maintenance ledgers kept by the Veterans Administration reveal that the property also was connected to water and sewer lines. In the basement was completed. Throughout the and cemetery staff regularly attended to the lodge. They maintained the building by painting it inside and outside, refinishing and varnishing the wood and linoleum floors, replacing the screens and gutters, upgrading the bathroom fixtures and mechanical systems. In the building was overhauled, primarily addressing the porches or verandas and shoring up the foundations beneath them.

The bulkhead entrance to the basement cellar was closed and asbestos siding was put on the walls at that time as well. The lodge was razed in September The photographs from shortly before its demolition show a two-story building with double porches on the front and rear facades. The first-floor porches were screened and the second-floor porch on the front elevation was left open. The main elevation appears to be three bays wide, and the door and window openings framed in simple surrounds. The windows look to be double-hung sash, and the exterior doors are glazed above the lock rail. The foundations were brick, the exterior walls were wood (until re-sided with asbestos in the and there was a brick chimney. The maintenance ledgers noted the FLORENCE NATIONAL CEMETERY,

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No. SC-2-A (page 2) interior floors were maple, although the flooring in the bathroom, kitchen and office was changed to linoleum. Site Context: The lodge built to the Four-Square plan in and razed in was located in the southeast section of the cemetery and near to the entrance. The lodge faced west to the drive leading into the grounds from the entrance gates. It was placed near East National Cemetery Road, with its south side elevation facing the roadway and its east (rear) elevation facing the supporting structures, that historically included a well, cistern, toolhouse, and cellar. The low wall made of brick that marks the boundaries of the cemetery also separated the lodge premises from East National Cemetery Road.

Today, the lodge site hosts a Carillion and smattering of graves as well as modern utilitarian buildings. The roadway curves around the northwest corner of the lodge site and provides access to the remaining structures. The principal axis is north-to- south from the entrance gates to the flagpole. History: Please see the contextual report for an analysis of the architectural development of the lodge as a building type for the national cemeteries and its place within this prescribed landscape (HALS No. In Congress authorized the appropriation of land for use as national cemeteries so that the Union soldiers who perished in service to their country could be buried with honor.

These became the first cemeteries in the national cemetery system; by the end of the decade almost men were buried in seventy-three national cemeteries. By that time the Office of the Quartermaster General, and the Quartermaster Montgomery C. Meigs in particular, had developed an architectural program for the cemetery. The program created for the national cemeteries included an enclosing wall demarcating the grounds and ornamental iron gates cast to instill reverence to those who entered and calm the wrought emotions of a nation in mourning for its lost sons. Specific plantings, such as the Osage-orange hedge and various trees, were selected to give a pleasing appearance and, likely, to screen outbuildings - the business of cemetery maintenance - from public view.

Less a commemorative architectural statement, the superintendent s lodge combined practicality with a respectful presence. Lodge plans first evolved from expedient wood-frame cottages to masonry buildings one-story in height and with a three-room floor plan. Construction of the temporary wood-frame lodges took place in the years to and overlapped with the construction of the first permanent masonry lodges built to a standard, single-story design from to Officers in charge of the cemeteries soon found the floor plans of the temporary wood lodges and the first permanent masonry lodges inconvenient and, increasingly, unattractive.

Moreover, representatives from the Quartermaster General s Office noted these three-room models were often too small for a superintendent and his family, and so in plans for a six- room, one and one-half story type were acquired from Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol Extension. The design was refined over the next two years and in drawn for the Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs s approval. This standard plan featured a mansard roof and so became associated with the French or Second Empire style. Contemporary buildings, domestic and civic, exhibited this aesthetic and so the choice of the Quartermaster for a Second FLORENCE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No.

SC-2-A (page 3) Empire style lodge is in keeping with national architectural trends as well as the personal taste of Meigs whose house also was erected in the Second Empire style. On the national stage, Alfred Mullet designed the Old Executive Office building in Washington, DC, a building whose construction in the coincided with the building of lodges in the Second Empire style in many of the national cemeteries. The National Cemetery Administration identifies the Second Empire style lodge, referred to in the as the usual type, or even the full Meigs plan likely in reference to the Quartermaster s endorsement of the design, as the first generation of permanent lodges. It reflects a concerted effort to standardize what a national cemetery, including the lodge, should look like.

The last cemeteries for which the Quartermaster contracted for this style of lodge were for Mobile, Alabama, and Beaufort, South Carolina, in The L-plan was revised in for the lodge in San Francisco, and then employed for the lodges in Mound City and Loudon Park. The revised plan was further improved for the construction of the lodge at Cypress Hills. The revision to the standard L-plan primarily included a change in roof form from the mansard to a cross-gable and the use of banded brick in the exterior walls. Cypress Hills was a simpler expression of the type, with segmental arches over the windows instead of stone lintels and having no banded exterior brick in the walls. In the the plans called for an elongated office wing.

This change to the L-plan accommodated an entrance hall in the middle of the building; the elongated L-plan was built in Santa Fe, Fort Smith, and Fort Leavenworth. By the century s end, standards of living called for conveniences the L-plan lodges lacked. Advances in plumbing and heating technologies, in particular, made the L-plan outdated as expectations about the appropriate level of domestic sanitation that the government should provide to its employees changed. Even so, the Quartermaster omitted indoor toilets from the lodge floor plans until Maintenance of the existing lodges, as well as ell additions, addressed some of the inconveniences of the older buildings, and made the lodges more comfortable as living spaces.

Between the and improvements to the existing lodges included the installation of indoor plumbing and bathrooms, central heating, closets and cupboards; adding a kitchen ell and converting the original kitchen into a dining room; and maintenance of windows, shutters, and porches. By the Quartermaster determined some lodges warranted a complete overall, rather than renovation, and the department began to replace some of the buildings in the national cemeteries. For the new lodges, it created a succession of twenty-two different plans between and Nine of these plans were used to build multiple lodges, but thirteen were unique designs, used only once.

Compared to the extended popularity of the L-plan, which lasted from to in its mansard-roof form and to in its later variations, the rapid succession of designs in the twentieth century suggests a new awareness among those directing the cemeteries of the need to construct lodges that were aesthetically and technologically up-to-date. Over five decades, the Quartermaster endorsed a progression of plans from four-squares to bungalows to Colonial Revival designs and then to suburban ramblers. This progression paralleled the changes FLORENCE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. SC-2-A (page 4) in form, style, building materials, and construction practices that occurred in the private housing market.

Most of the lodges built in the twentieth century are indistinguishable from typical American middle-class and upper-middle-class suburban dwellings, with the exception of a second entrance for the superintendent s office. In some instances, such as in Hampton, Virginia, and in Annapolis, Maryland, the army made a particular effort to match new lodges to their local surroundings, usually by building period-revival designs in places where those designs would have particular resonance.

In a nod to the colonial heritage of the Chesapeake, the Quartermaster built one-and-one-half-story brick lodges in a Colonial Revival style at these cemeteries in In another example, the desire to match designs to localities prompted the alteration of the L-plan lodge at San Francisco into a Spanish Mission Revival building in and the similarly extensive reconstruction of the Santa Fe lodge into the Pueblo Revival style in The Four-Square plan used for the frame lodge in Florence National Cemetery in was also used in Barrancas, Florida, that same year. Like Florence s, the Barrancas lodge was a wood- frame building.

The Quartermaster s department repeated the Four-Square plan in lodges made of brick in six other cemeteries between and Gettysburg, Knoxville, Camp Butler, Little Rock, Andrew Johnson, Tennessee, and San Antonio. The Four-Square plan provided space for the hall, office, parlor, dining room, pantry and kitchen on the first floor, and space for the hall, four bedrooms and bathroom on the second floor. The Florence lodge had these rooms, plus a screened lower porch or veranda for additional living space. The Four-Squares were nearly identical and their significance comes as a collective example of the type perpetuated through the Quartermaster s department. Florence, South Carolina, was a transportation hub and a vital railroad center with lines to points in the North and the South.

During the Civil War, a large prisoner of war camp was located near the present site of the cemetery. Between and men (and one woman) were held here. Conditions were crowded, food was scare, shelter and beds nonexistent, and medical supplies were in short supply. Many died from diarrhea and scurvy, and the first interment is thought to have been on September 17, The burial ground was declared a national cemetery in Conditions at the camp, essentially a large stockade built in response to a Yellow Fever epidemic, were dire. They were reportedly better than those at Andersonville and Macon in Georgia, and men from those prisons were transferred to Florence. Other camps in Charleston, South Carolina, and Salisbury, North Carolina, sent prisoners to Florence as well.

New detainees arrived too quickly and adequate records were not kept. Thus, many of those who died in Florence cannot be identified. The first burials took place on property belonging to Dr. James Jarrott and the graves were marked with wood headboards. One known burial is that of Florena Budwin, a woman who disguised herself as man in order to accompany or find her husband then serving in the Union Army. The Budwins were from Pennsylvania, and Florena was captured near Charleston in Her gender was discovered when she became ill and needed medical attention. She died in January FLORENCE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. SC-2-A (page 5) Care of the national cemetery was initially entrusted to Francis Smith, a man of color.

He constructed a two-room, wood lodge in early at his own expense with the tacit expectation that it would be his home. He took care of the grounds, worked hard and was considered a worthy man. In a report dated September it was noted that Smith was discharged from the cemetery and that Superintendent Hughes replaced him. It also appeared that Smith continued to work on the grounds. By that time, the lodge Smith constructed was considered dilapidated. The roof leaked and the floorboards were loose. The report recommended that a permanent lodge be built. The inspector also requested that Smith be compensated for his work on building the wood lodge, and work about the cemetery, since he no longer had housing and was poor. The inspector asked for a compensation rate of $50 a month.

In the inspection report observed the brick lodge was then four years old, placing the construction date in or and shortly after the recommendation to replace the frame lodge that Smith erected with a permanent one was made. The walls of the new lodge had settled, producing some cracks but no new ones in the last two years. For this reason the proposal to add columns or supports to the roof was not pursued. Other improvements were made, however. These included Venetian blinds at the gable ends, painting the woodwork, and adding a closet to one of the rooms. Potentially the most complicated change addressed the need for a cellar. One option was to excavate under the kitchen, but this risked undermining the foundations of the building, and the other was to construct an outdoor cellar.

The latter proposal was selected and was built 12 away from the main lodge to the northeast. The enclosing wall, made of brick, was contracted to Brown and Rutherford in but no reference as to who built the lodge was made. In the cemetery wall was complete, and the domestic complex for the superintendent consisted of the lodge and two outbuildings, the brick cellar and a frame stable. The stable provided space for the tool house, wood shed, and water closet. The brick lodge was described as a one-story building that measured about 45 x 18 with piazzas on the north and south elevations. The piazzas were each about 6 wide and the main roof extended over them. There were three rooms inside, housing the office, sleeping room, and kitchen.

In the inspection this description was augmented further. The three rooms were of equal size and measured 15 x 10 . There was a frame kitchen, sheathed in weatherboards, resting on brick piers and measuring 17 x 14 ; plus a tool house which was a rough board structure measuring 10 square and recently repaired, an outside cellar some 4 deep that was made of brick and covered in shingles, and a privy, also weatherboarded. The stable was moved to align with the tool house and kitchen in the yard. In the survey of the cemetery grounds and facilities revealed that the one-story brick lodge had been replaced.

Similarly, several of the outbuildings were removed, leaving only the exterior cellar that had been constructed between and and a new stable constructed in The stable housed the tool house, shop, coal bin, and an earthen closet for the public (i.e., a privy). The design of the lodge kept the two-veranda concept, but expanded it. Built in the same location as the former lodge, but turned to face west, the new lodge in a Four-Square plan was two stories and accommodated four rooms plus a pantry on the first floor, and four bedrooms plus a bathroom on the second floor. There was no basement or cellar in The verandas FLORENCE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No.

SC-2-A (page 6) were on the east and west elevations; the blueprint attached the survey for the Quartermaster notes the new lodge s orientation and updates the placement of the outbuildings.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-2-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Annual Report of the Secretary of War. [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Deetz, James. In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. New York: Doubleday, Dickinson, William C., Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon, eds. Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation s Capital. Athens: University of Ohio Press for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, General Correspondence and Reports Relating to National and Post Cemeteries, 1865-ca. Record Group 92, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Holt, Dean W. American Military Cemeteries: A Comprehensive Illustrated Guide to the Hallowed Grounds of the United States, Including Cemeteries Overseas.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Message of the President of the United States [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Meyer, Richard E., ed. Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture. Logan: Utah State University Press, National Cemetery Historical File, Department of Memorial Affairs, Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Sloane, David Charles. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Zipf, Catherine W. Marking Union Victory in the South: The Construction of the National Cemetery System. In Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson.

Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS SC-2-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The documentation of the lodges and rostrums in the national cemeteries was undertaken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), one of the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service, Richard O'Connor, Chief. The project was sponsored by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Sara Amy Leach, Senior Historian. Project planning was coordinated by FLORENCE NATIONAL CEMETERY,

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No. SC-2-A (page 7) Catherine C. Lavoie, Chief of HABS. Historical research was undertaken by HABS Historians Virginia B. Price and Michael R. Harrison. NCA Historians Jennifer Perunko, Alec Bennett, and Hillori Schenker provided research material, edited and reviewed written reports. Field work for selected sites was carried out and measured drawings produced by HABS Architects Paul Davidson, Ryan Pierce, and Mark Schara.