By Sean Ayers

Name of Deceased: Annie Lind Forsberg

Date of Birth: April 16, 1872

Date of Death: October 14, 1964

Location in Cemetery: Section E, Lot 18, Grave 3 East

Description:

Annie Lind Forsberg did not have much information on herself other than a few mentions of her in a newspaper published in Roanoke.¹ Even though most of the spotlight is on her father, a respected colonel for the Confederate Army who immigrated from Stockholm, Sweden. Her father, Augustus Forsberg was an engineer in Sweden until he was offered a position in Charleston, South Carolina for the Confederacy. He would move there gaining ranks in the army and fighting, mostly in Virginia as confirmed through different records.² He was not a leading commander for much of his career nor was that really his position in the war until 1862.³ He was dispatched to assist in the training of the 51^st Virginia Infantry which would be used in the Battle of Fort Donelson. After the 51^st escaped, Forsberg was elected as a commander of the infantry division which he would remain at for the rest of the war. During the Battle of Lynchburg, his career begins to take a turn as does the Confederacy. Forsberg begins to command other regimes until he was shot at the Third Battle of Winchester. He would not return to service until 1865 at the Battle of Waynesboro, where he was taken as a prisoner of war.⁴ After being released later in 1865, Forsberg would go back to Lynchburg to recover from injuries. There, he met Mary Elizabeth Otey (nee Morgan), his nurse who would become his wife. Forsberg would become a civil engineer for 21 years and would die in 1910.⁵

Augustus and Mary Elizabeth Forsberg had three children, according to “Find a Grave”, four children according to “Ancestry.com”: Carl Stuart Forsberg, Annie Lind Forsberg, and Hilda L. Forsberg Davis, Frank Forsberg.⁶ There are no records of Annie Lind Forsberg marrying, but her two siblings did. Hilda married John Henry Davis whom she had a son with, John Henry Davis Jr. Davis Jr. was a part of the 91^st Coast Artillery unit in the United States Army, for which he died at sea. Carl was the oldest child and married Elizabeth Newhall Forsberg. Together, they had Carl Stuart Forsberg Jr. and Mary Elizabeth Forsberg, and both children were childless.⁷ Frank Forsberg seems to have very little records and may be buried at a grave titled with “Child of Col. A. Forsberg.”

The burial plot was mostly flat ground plates or atypical tombstones except Augustus Forsberg and Mary Elizabeth Forsberg, which were more traditional curved rectangles.  Mary Elizabeth’s grave is marked as “Molly F. Forsberg,” which seemed to be a nickname. Augustus’s grave is marked as “Ludwig August Forsburg,” which can be seen as a name used in some sources. There is a grave by the name of “Fannie W. Morford” which shares a last name with Mary Elizabeth’s mother’s maiden name. However, the person seems to be fairly unknown. John Henry Davis Sr., Hilda's husband, is also buried at this plot, though their child is not. Carl Forsberg seems to be the only child of Augustus and Mary Elizabeth to not be buried at this plot. With more research, Carl Stuart Forsberg was actually buried in Virginia Beach at the Eastern Shore Chapel Cemetery.

Bibliography:

¹ “Galaxy of Pretty Maids for Confederate Reunion.” News Leader. Richmond and Manchester, VA, October 9, 1905, 11, Pg. 12.

² Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Confederacy (University of North Carolina Press, 1940), 244.

³ United States Congress, Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865, Government Printing Office, 1904.

⁴ Charles Minor Blackford, Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg, VA (Lynchburg: The Lynchburg Bar, 1901), 24, 48.

⁵ Bruce S. Allardice, Confederate Colonels: A Biographical Register (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2008), 152.

⁶ “Anna L. Forsberg in the 188- United States Federal Census.” Ancestry. Last modified 1880. Accessed October 21, 2022. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/11967670:6742.

⁷ “Annie Lind Forsberg (1872-1964) - Find a Grave...” Find a Grave. Joan Mays, September 28, 2012. Last modified September 28, 2012. Accessed October 21, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/97914504/annie-lind-forsberg.

Picture of Tombstone/Headstone and any other Relevant Images: