By: Chris Kolakowski
In July 1913, a large crowd gathered at Gettysburg National Military Park to mark the 50th anniversary of the Civil War’s bloodiest battle. The United States Army oversaw the program and logistics for the major gathering of veterans, spectators, and dignitaries over several days of events and ceremonies.
One of the officers detailed to support the anniversary was Lt. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., who was just shy of his 27th birthday. His namesake father was a Confederate lieutenant general, friend to U.S. Grant, former governor of Kentucky, and vice-presidential candidate on the Gold Democrat ticket in 1896.
What Buckner Jr. saw at Gettysburg made a deep impression. “At the ‘Bloody Angle’ the survivors of Pickett’s Charge shook hands with those who fifty years ago had met them in a bloody struggle. Each was proud to be in a country which had produced the other. Each was glad to call the other his friend,” he wrote to his mother. “The Gettysburg semi-centennial has not been the celebration of a victory of war. It has been the celebration of a victory of peace.”
Buckner Jr.’s excitement about this assignment raised an eyebrow with his mother Delia, who was from the Confederacy’s former capital, had Confederate ancestors, and was married to the highest-ranking Confederate still living. Bolivar explained in a letter that he relished the professional challenges of supporting a camp of 55,000 veterans. He also recognized that “being associated with officers who will in a very few years be at the top in the Army, and having an opportunity to meet many of those who are now prominent in National politics, is always of advantage professionally.” He reassured Delia that “I love the South, and all that it stands for. I love its people, its traditions, its gentility, but I do not feel that loyalty to the South compels me to hate the North.”
Buckner Jr. also happened to be present for the battle’s 75th anniversary in 1938, leading tanks of the 66th Regiment in a parade through town.
A few years later, he took command of the defenses of Alaska, which he led until being assigned to command of Tenth Army in June 1944. He directed Tenth Army in the invasion of Okinawa in 1945, and was killed in action on June 18, 1945. Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., is the seniormost American killed by enemy fire in World War II and the 20th century, and lies next to his parents in Frankfort, Kentucky.
