MOULTRIE, Ga. — Members of the Moultrie-McNeill Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy observed their 118th anniversary at their recent meeting at which time they finalized plans for the 118th annual Memorial Service to be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 18, at the Confederate War Memorial on the Courthouse square.

This year’s service will feature the reading of names of Colquitt County’s (known) 77 casualties from three units organized from the area, whose population was only 1,363 on the 1860 census, the UDC said in a press release. Each group enrolled at the Courthouse and marched northward from Main Street. 

From the first infantry group to leave, 15 died from diseases in their training camp near Savannah before leaving Georgia soil. 

Colquitt County casualties are buried on battlefields and mass graves as far away from home as Maryland, Pennsylvania and Northern prison camps in New York, Illinois and Delaware.

One local family lost six sons and another lost four.

The state of Georgia supplied approximately 140,000 men for the war effort and April 26 was officially made Confederate Memorial Day in 1874 to remember these ancestors.

“The local monument was dedicated in 1909 by the support of everyone in the county and all grieving families in memory of their loved ones who gave their all,” the UDC said. “Surviving veterans and Georgia’s governor were guest speakers at one of the largest gatherings Moultrie had seen at that time in history.” 

Members of the Moultrie Sons of Confederate Veterans will be assisting with a military salute and Taps.