Double Southern Cross of Honor ceremony in Va.
10/18/2013
by Linda Wheeler
Two Shenandoah Valley brothers who joined the military and were awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor, now known as the Southern Cross of Honor, died before they received their medals. Maj. Samuel Myers and Capt. John E. Myers will both be honored in a ceremony at the Union Forge Methodist Church cemetery near Edinburg, Va., at 4 p.m. on Oct. 26.
The men were born in Pennsylvania but moved to the Valley in 1852 and purchased several businesses. When the war began, iron ore from the brothers’ Union Forge and Columbia furnaces was used by the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond to produce artillery.
The men ignored their Northern roots and chose to support the South. They formed the Shenandoah Rangers by recruiting friends, family and employees. The Rangers would become Company C of the 7th Virginia Cavalry. The younger brother, John, died at age 27 at the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. Samuel died at his home in New Market in 1865 at age 34 from what was described as “fatigue and disease.”
The ceremony, which is open to the public, will be conducted by local camps of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans.
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