Carrie's Graveyard Book 2:46 Carrie Hassler

Carrie’s Graveyard Book – Carrie Hassler
(Paula Breedlove, Mike Evans, and Mark “Brink” Brinkman)
Paulajon Music ASCAP/Mark Brinkman Songs – BMI

“Unaffrighted by the sight of blood, unawed by horrid wounds, unblanched by ghastly death, [Carrie] walked from room to room, from man to man, her very skirts stained in blood.” – Colonel W. D. Gale, in a letter to his wife.



The soldiers who fought in the Battle of Franklin in 1864 may have been far from home, but it took place right on Carrie McGavock’s doorstep. Her home plantation, Carnton, was commandeered as a field hospital, where she first treated the wounded, and after the battle, the dead. More than a thousand soldiers needed to be buried, and Carrie took it upon herself to make sure each boy rested peacefully in her graveyard. Until her death in 1905, she spent her time and fortune burying and recording each name in her graveyard book so that every family could know the fate of their husband, son, or brother.