National Affairs: General Morgan's Body

A soft-spoken stranger turned up in Winchester, Va. (pop. 13,600) one day last week, and paid a solemn call on Oscar Harry, superintendent of the Mt. Hebron Cemetery. His name, said the stranger, was J. G. Floyd; he was a South Carolina undertaker, and he had come to remove a body from Mr. Harry's keeping.

Asked Superintendent Harry: "Just who is it you want to remove, Mr. Floyd?"

"Man name of Morgan," Floyd said gently.

"Morgan?" said Harry thoughtfully. "Rather a common name. What Morgan would that be, Mr. Floyd?"

Undertaker Floyd produced a sheaf of documents and handed them over. Harry read the first sentence and exploded "General Morgan, sir? You're not taking General Morgan today, tomorrow or the next day." Thoroughly aroused, Harry hustled off to warn his fellow townsmen that Cowpens, S.C. (pop. 1,800) had launched a new and bold attack to snatch the body of General Daniel Morgan.

Lusty Life. Roistering, hard-drinking old Dan'l Morgan lived most of his life in Winchester and died there in 1802, but he had won his fame by soundly defeating the British at the Battle of Cowpens on Jan. 17, 1781. Cowpens, which celebrates Jan. 17 as the rest of the U.S. celebrates the Fourth of July, claimed that Winchester was not doing right by their hero. In Winchester, they charged, there is only a battered old slab over his grave.

Winchester admitted that the slab was a bit chipped, but this was the work of Yankee soldiers who passed through Winchester during the War Between the States. Furthermore, they asked, where else except in Winchester could the general's remains lie surrounded by the graves of Revolutionary heroes "who formed themselves into a bodyguard and were pledged to follow wherever he led"?

Undertaker Floyd soon discovered that Winchester was not impressed by a letter of authorization to move the body, from elderly Mrs. Josephine Neville Strong Callahan of Redwood City, Calif., who said that she was the old general's great-great-granddaughter. Floyd called Cowpens for reinforcements. Help arrived in the person of S. A. ("Tip") Moseley, a former mayor of Cowpens and chairman of the Cowpens Committee in Charge of Getting General Morgan's Body. With Tip Moseley was the committee's attorney, J. Manning Poliakoff.

Quick Action. Lawyer Poliakoff, a suave and brisk young man, stopped the first five citizens he met and asked each two questions: "Where is Mt. Hebron Cemetery?" "Who is General Morgan?" All knew the answer to the first question; none could answer the second. This, said Poliakoff, was proof that Winchester was not giving General Morgan his proper due. "In Spartanburg County," he said, "you can ask any school child who General Morgan is, and he'll tell you his whole story. Infancy to adulthood, we study him. Sir, he's our hero!"

Tip Moseley spoke bitterly of the condition of General Morgan's grave. "It could be any grave," he said. "And those six soldiers they said surrounded the general. Where are they? I don't see them anywhere around the general. They're way over in another part of the cemetery."