The Civil War Muse

Stop 50: Byram’s Ford Cemetery

[Waypoint 38.998534 -94.575060]

This tour stop is located in the southeastern corner of the intersection of Gregory Boulevard and Troost Avenue. After the Battle of Westport, most of the dead were buried quickly on the battlefield where they lay. Federal, state and local authorities sponsored efforts to reinter soldiers who fought for the Union but arranging for the final resting place of the Confederate dead was left to private citizens.

This is how Byram’s Ford Cemetery, also known as The Confederate Soldier’s Cemetery or the Self Cemetery, came into being. A group of private citizens, led by former Capt. Francis M. Davis, Company C, 12th Missouri Cavalry, Shelby’s Iron Brigade, raised money and purchased an acre of land at the south-eastern corner of present-day Troost Avenue and Gregory Boulevard. Over the next few years, 75 Confederate soldiers, including Col. Upton Hays and Capt. Richard Yeager, were reinterred in the Byram’s Ford Cemetery.