Prattville Dragoons to place 300 Confederate flags at local cemeteries

The Prattville Dragoons planned to start Confederate History Month by flagging graves of Confederate soldiers at Oak Hill Cemetery and Confederate Memorial Park, with the effort beginning Saturday at 8 a.m. at Oak Hill. The camp said it would place more than 300 flags and invited the public to help put a Confederate battle flag on each grave.

The display put a long-running fight over public memory back into view in Prattville. Oak Hill Cemetery is not a private site. The City of Prattville maintains it as one of the city’s two public cemeteries, and the burial ground dates to 1840. That makes any Confederate observance there more than a symbolic gesture; it unfolds in a shared civic space where local history is actively managed.

Carl Wade, a member of the Prattville Dragoons Camp 1524 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the group’s purpose is historical preservation as well as commemoration. “Our first goal is to honor our confederate ancestry, and secondly is the accurate preservation of history,” Wade said. He also said the camp stays visible in the community through City Fest, the Fourth of July and Christmas parades, an annual food drive for AICC and volunteer work with the Salvation Army red kettle campaign.

Wade said the Dragoons maintain several Confederate cemeteries through the Guardian Program, including mowing and weed control. He said the group had reclaimed Indian Hill after it became overgrown. The effort at Oak Hill, then, was part of a broader upkeep campaign tied to Confederate graves across the area, not just a one-day ceremony.

The timing also fit a wider Alabama tradition. Confederate History and Heritage Month has been recognized by gubernatorial proclamation, and a 2005 proclamation from Gov. Bob Riley made April Confederate History and Heritage Month in the state. Alabama’s Confederate Memorial Day became an annual state holiday in 1901, first observed on April 26 before later moving to the fourth Monday in April.

Prattville’s ties to that memory run deep. The Prattaugan Museum and Heritage Center says the original Prattville Dragoons formed in 1861 when the Civil War began, and a historical marker says the unit assembled in April 1861. The same marker notes that a monument was erected by the Merrill E. Pratt Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on April 26, 1916.

The Dragoons also planned a Civil War and Living History and Skirmish at Confederate Memorial Park in Marbury on April 20 at 9 a.m., extending the month’s observances beyond Prattville and into another site tied to the region’s wartime memory.