The Work of Grief
Martha Carter was born in Warren at the turn of the 19th Century. When she was 23 she married Gustavus Rouse and they had 6 children. From the time she was 32 until her death in 1886 she bore the grief of burying her husband and all of her children save one.
While war always bring great technological change, one innovation of the Civil War affected Martha Rouse directly. When her youngest son, Lucien, succumbed to diphtheria while serving the 19th CT Volunteers in Alexandria, VA his body was embalmed so that he could be returned to his family rather than on the battlefield. Lucien’s gravestone in the Old Warren Cemetery really does mark his final resting place.
The inscription on Martha’s only monument reads: “She hath done what she could.”