A century and half has passed since the end of the Civil War, but there are those among us who take a moment each year to look into the past, as they gather in Oakdale Cemetery to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day.

It was one year after the end of the war that split the United States in two that the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Ga., set aside a day to honor the Confederate dead. In Beaufort County, the tradition continued Saturday, as members of the Civil War re-enactment groups Beaufort Plow Boys and the Washington Grays No.1 Chapter, Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Pamlico Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Children of the Confederacy met at Oakdale Cemetery, in the shadow of Washington’s monument to the ancestors who fought in the Civil War.

According to Bo Lewis. commander with the Beaufort Plow Boys, many of those participating are direct descendants of those who fought in the Civil War. The ceremony is an opportunity to remember those who died fighting for what they believed to be right — in this case, fighting against Northern aggression, he said. The ceremony, bursting with American and North Carolina patriotism, also gives a nod to all those who’ve lost they’re lives in every war fought by American soldiers.

The monument stands atop one of Oakdale’s hills, on one side surrounded by small, blank tombstones marking the burial sites of remains of unidentified soldiers. The obelisk, purchased by the local United Daughters of the Confederacy, once stood on the Washington waterfront. It was moved in the early 1900s, when UDC purchased the Oakdale plot. UDC treasurer Colleen Lupton said the move was quite a production, according to stories of the time: a procession followed the cart holding the monument, walking with it as it made the trip from the waterfront to the cemetery at Market and 15^th streets.

North Carolina is one of eleven states that observes Confederate Memorial Day, along with Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.