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PVT. ALFRED J. CASH MEMORIAL SERVICE
Alfred Cash was a private in Company D, 43rd Georgia Infantry of the Confederate Army. Along with three brothers, he volunteered for service in March 1862 at the age of 22. Alfred was married to a local Banks County, Georgia woman, Ellen Elizabeth.
No sooner than had he joined his regiment, he was exposed to to sicknesses sweeping the recruit camps: mumps, measles, flux and fever. Coming from the countryside, he had little exposure or resistance to such childhood diseases. Consequently, he and his brothers became infected and were sent to the hospital, Alfred in Chattanooga and his brothers to Atlanta. Regrettably, Alfred succumbed to his illness and died on April 30, 1862, less than two months after enlisting. Two brothers, Dillard and Rayford, died the the following month.
Alfred was buried in Chattanooga along the Tennessee River a short distance from the present Chattanooga Confederate Cemetery. Because of flooding many grave markers were washed away and many displaced by the course of the local battles and neglect. We assume that Alfred's grave was thus erased during the tumult of war.
After the war, the Federal Government exhumed the Union dead and interred them in cemeteries in Chattanooga and Atlanta. No effort was made by the government to place the Confederate dead in cemeteries. In 1867 sympathetic women of Chattanooga formed the Confederate Memorial Association, acquired land for a cemetery, and commenced re-interring the remains of Confederate Soldiers buried in mostly unmarked graves. The effort took 10 years and was done without public funding. Thanks to these sympathetic, patriotic women, today, these noble Confederate soldiers rest in the hallowed ground of the Chattanooga Confederate Cemetery.
Private Cash is one of the approximately 2,500 Confederate Soldiers thus interred. His resting place among his fellow brothers in the lost cause is known but to God. However, Private Cash's tragic and sad story has an honorable conclusion. His great, great grandson, Fred Adolphus, has honored Private Cash's memory by placing a Confederate headstone at the Chattanooga Confederate Cemetery. Although his grave site is unknown, the marker was placed in the vicinity of cast iron markers honoring soldiers from Georgia. The headstone was placed on February 17, 2007 by our N. B. Forrest Camp 3 of the SCV and Fred Adolphus. The following Saturday, a dedication memorial service was held by our camp, representatives from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, area SCV members, the Adolphus family and local citizens.
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