James Keeling, Defender of the Bridge

Bristol, Virginia

Most of James Keeling is buried in Virginia, but his hand is in a grave across the state line in Tennessee -- only a few hundred yards from where it was chopped off.

Keeling was a 43-year-old Confederate private guarding a railroad bridge across the Holston River. On the night of November 8, 1861, Keeling fought a group of Union loyalist "bridge-burners," who wanted to torch the railroad bridge. Some accounts say that Keeling faced only five or six arsonists, others that there were as many as 40; some say that Keeling killed three of them, others that he merely wounded one and knocked away their box of matches. Whatever odds he actually faced, Keeling kept the bridge from burning, and was so bloody with knife and bullet wounds that he was left for dead. A local woman made a silk bag for his severed hand and buried it in her nearby family cemetery (currently closed to visitors) but the rest of Keeling survived for another 34 years.

Keeling was buried in an unmarked grave -- and celebrated as an example of Lost Cause valor. He was christened "The South's Horatius" -- for his heroic bridge defense -- and posthumously awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor. Fourteen years after he died his grave was marked with a small obelisk engraved with a Confederate battle flag; the epitaph, "Defender of the Bridge;" and a brief, heroic account of the night he lost his hand. And although most people have never heard of James Keeling, his obelisk is sparkling clean and well-maintained in a cemetery of tumbling, weather-beaten tombstones. Apparently, The South's Horatius still has local fans.