4 Unknown Soldiers From 1800s Honored

Four 19th century soldiers “known only to God” will be honored in a Veterans Day ceremony here Monday.

The graves in the city cemetery had been marked with a brass star and four small plaques, identifying each as an “Unknown Soldier.”

Now, a polished granite headstone and concrete base mark the graves.

Members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10010 decided to spend about $300 to buy the monument after the small brass plaques were among 60 grave markers overturned or ruined in February by vandals.

But the soldiers remain a mystery because the cemetery’s records don’t go back before the 1920s.

The only hint of the soldiers’ lives comes from the graves’ brass star, which is marked with the initials “GAR,” for Grand Army of the Republic.

If the soldiers served in the GAR, they could have fought in the Civil War or in the West’s Indian wars.