Local services planned to honor America’s war heroes

A Civil War veteran will be recognized in one of three services planned in Donley County in observance of Memorial Day next Monday.

The late Peru Hardy Benson, who is buried in Clarendon’s Citizens Cemetery, will be honored by the Plemons-Shelby Camp 464 of The Sons of the Confederate Veterans, dressed in authentic uniforms and arms, with a memorial ceremony. The activity will take place at the Benson gravesite in Citzens’ Cemetery at noon. The public is invited to attend.  Please bring your own chairs.

Benson was a Prisoner of War who spent two years in Yankee prisons and was among a group of Confederates who became known as the “Immortal Six Hundred” because of the number who survived deliberate starvation, exposure to freezing weather, lack of sanitation, lack of medical care, physical abuse by the guards, and imprisonment in the line of fire. Following the war, Benson settled in Hall County where he died on October 14, 1906. His family still owns some of property he settled near Brice, and his grandson, C.L. Benson, lives in Clarendon.
Earlier on Monday, two services will be held in honor of Memorial Day at 10 a.m. – one in Clarendon and one at Rowe Cemetery near Hedley.

The Adamson-Lane Post 287 of the American Legion in Hedley will hold its annual Memorial Day services at the Rowe Cemetery Monday morning, May 30, 2011 at 10 a.m.

The post members will place American flags on the graves of 225 veterans buried in the Rowe Cemetery. The flags will remain there through Monday in honor of those departed comrades that have served this country.

The program will be conducted by members of the American Legion. The Memorial Day address will be entitled “Preserving the Memory of the Fallen.”

The program will include the ceremony honoring the Missing In Action and the Prisoners Of War, still unaccounted for.  The post adjutant will read the roll call of the 225 veterans buried in the Rowe Cemetery.

The program will be concluded with the laying of the memorial wreath and the playing of taps.
The Donley County Memorial Post of the VFW 782 will also hold a memorial service at the

Donley County War Memorial on the Courthouse Square at 10 a.m.