[StBernard] Chalmette National Cemetary

[Westley Annis]

Editor's pick
Monday, February 16, 2009 
By Chris Kirkham
St. Bernard bureau
As the floodwaters receded from Chalmette National Cemetery in 2005,
employees of the National Park Service confronted a grim scene: Storm surges
from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had toppled sections of a historic
red-brick wall lining the site, 140-year-old gravestones lay in pieces and
soldiers' bones had surfaced from below. 

After more than two years of meticulous planning by architects and
preservationists, work is under way to restore the Civil War-era cemetery. A
curious niche of historic-preservation contractors has descended on the site
to undertake the largest-ever repair of a national cemetery. 

The goal is to mimic the exact look of the graves and the cemetery wall
before the hurricane damage -- even down to refashioning the exact red
bricks and gray mortar in the two half-mile walls lining the gravestones. 

"We're doing this with the highest degree of historical accuracy we can
achieve, to preserve a national treasure," said Brian Strack, the facility
manager for Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, which oversees the
cemetery and adjacent Chalmette Battlefield. 

The cemetery and the road leading to it will remain closed during repairs.
The battlefield and the Malus-Beauregard House, built in the 1830s and
repaired after Katrina, remain open. 

Although the cemetery is next to Chalmette Battlefield, the location of Gen.
Andrew Jackson's triumph over the British in the last battle of the War of
1812, it is primarily a Civil War cemetery. Only one soldier who fought in
the Battle of New Orleans is buried at Chalmette, moved there in the early
1900s from a local cemetery in Pike County, Miss., where he had died. 

The cemetery is the final resting place of Sara Rosetta Wakeman, who was
famous for posing as a man to fight against the Confederates, and more than
100 black soldiers who fought for the Union as the Louisiana Native Guard. 

Veterans and their families from all major wars from the Civil War through
the Vietnam War are buried in the national cemetery. 

--- Shattered grave markers --- 

Since November, crews have been working to piece together 74 gravestones
smashed by fallen trees during Katrina. The National Park Service conducted
a detailed inventory of the more than 15,000 grave markers on the site
beginning in 2006, noting which had been broken and needed repair.

Workers from Pishny Restoration Services, a Kansas company, then started the
sensitive process of tying each headstone back together with a steel rod and
patching the cracks with a gluelike substance meant to match the exact
marble color of the gravestone. 

Some of the stones date as far back as 1868, when the cemetery opened,
forcing workers to be especially careful when drilling into the
deteriorating marble stones. 

"Some of those were like the consistency of a sugar cube," said Corey
Thomas, business development manager with Pishny. "You could just scrape it
off with your fingernail." 

Some of the most deteriorated stones had to be filled with a special
hardening material that seeps into the marker's hollow spaces to bind it
together again. On others, crews had to re-create inscriptions that been
split or cracked. 

--- Putting wall back together --- 

The vast majority of the gravestones have been patched together, but other
contractors are working to rebuild the two red-brick walls lining the
graves, some of which date back to 1870. 

The $3.7 million wall restoration is the most expensive post-Katrina project
undertaken in Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, which includes the
Barataria Preserve on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish. 

About 15 percent of the wall was knocked down by Katrina, and the National
Park Service sent samples of the bricks to laboratories to learn their exact
strength and makeup. Those results were sent to St. Joe Brick Works Inc., a
Pearl River brick-making company that uses old-fashioned wooden molds to
create custom bricks for projects such as this one. 

The company is developing a test batch for the battlefield wall, firing the
kiln at different temperatures to produce a red color that matches the
original bricks. 

"Our raw material affords us the opportunity to offer our product for these
restoration jobs, because it is so close to what was used before," said Pete
Schneider, St. Joe Brick president. "We've been able to virtually match
every project according to the National Park Service requirements." 

The company is still awaiting a final count of the number of bricks needed
for Chalmette National Cemetery; right now, it is anywhere from 50,000 to
100,000. Meanwhile, crews are collecting bricks from broken sections of the
wall in hopes of reusing them. 

On a recent rainy morning, seven workers from WW Masonry Restoration and
Waterproofing were chiseling away at a load of bricks in a nearby warehouse
to remove old mortar. The cleaned bricks were stacked and repackaged to be
used when the new walls are built. 

The plan is to use as many of the old bricks as possible above the ground.
Most of the new bricks will be laid as part of the foundation, which goes 3
feet underground. Even the mortar must be a precise match, and contractors
are choosing among several different shades. 

In the next few months, workers will construct a sample section of the wall
for review by the National Park Service. If it is up to par, they will
proceed with the rest of the 1,600 feet of wall that needs replacement. 

If not, it is back to square one. 

The entire cemetery restoration project, which includes repairs to the
superintendent's lodge and the carriage house, is slated for completion in
January. 

. . . . . . . 

Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham at timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.