Confederate Spies in Kentucky

On March 12th, 2012 near Mentor KY in Campbell County, while geocaching I ran into something I never see in SW Ohio, the grave of a Confederate Officer.

Confederate officer Lt. Thomas Jefferson McGraw was arrested by Union troops as a spy for actively recruiting men in KY for the Confederate Army. He was taken to Cincinnati on April 23, 1863, tried and found guilty. He expected to be taken as POW but was instead sent to Johnsons Island on Lake Erie for execution on May 15th, 1863. Abraham Lincoln himself rejected a family plea for a pardon. McGraw was blindfolded and sat on the edge of his coffin so that the gunfire would push him back into the coffin for easy disposal. McGraw's body was then returned and buried at Flagg Spring Cemetery in Kentucky.
The monument here was placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1914.



sources:
- FindaGrave.com
- KnowSouthernHistory.com