Ceremony planned Saturday to honor Confederate veterans

veterans are buried in Cherokee County.

On Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m., they will be remembered by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Moses Wood Camp 125 and the United Daughters of the Confederacy Moses Wood Chapter 469.

"It's important because these are our ancestors," said Camp Commander Jordan Dill of the local Sons of Confederate Veterans. "The First Commandment says to honor your mother and father. Do we stop there? What about your grandmother and grandfather? Or your great-grandparents? This is our heritage. In a time and day when some Southerners almost feel ashamed of their heritage and we can't display our battle flag but you can have illegal immigrants walking down the sidewalk and groups who want to have their own country within our country, we want to celebrate our heritage."

The event, which is being held in observance of Wednesday's Confederate Memorial Day, will begin with

procession and wreath-laying ceremony at the Confederate Soldier's Monument at East Buford and South Limestone streets in Gaffney. A memorial address and gun salute will follow.

The memorial events will move from the monument to the Confederate Soldier's Plot at Oakland Cemetery for the roll call of veterans buried there. Children will then help organizers place flags on the veterans' headstones.

The Sons of the Confederate Veterans maintain a majority of the graves belonging to the veterans in county cemeteries and have already replaced approximately 150 headstones.

The Confederate Soldier's Monument was erected in 1923.

Memorial services have been held locally since the war, when female Limestone College students dressed in white would place flowers on the graves of soldiers. The "memorial association" later became the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Each year, the members of the group would place a wreath on the monument, which they helped raise money to purchase.

This is the 13th year Dill will help lead a formal memorial service remembering the

Confederate Veterans. The event is held annually on the second Saturday of May.