Mel Madarang
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – After more than 150 years, two unknown Union soldiers will be properly laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery after their full skeletal remains were unearthed during an archeological excavation at Manassas Battlefield National Park, according to National Park Service.
National Park Service spokesperson Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles said that the two soldiers will be the first burials at the newest Millennium Expansion of the cemetery when they will be interred later this year.
The interment ceremony will most likely take place between late summer and early fall, around the time when the cemetery remembers the Second Bull Run Battle that took place in August of 1862 when the two soldiers were killed in action, according to Arlington Cemetery spokesperson Kerry Meeker.
“This really illustrates the price of war, these men faced grave injuries and very possibly suffered for days before they were able to get care,” Anzelmo-Sarles said.
This is the first time an archeological excavation was conducted in a battlefield surgeon’s pit.
Meeker says there are currently 4,641 unknown soldiers, 2,111 of those are Civil War soldiers whose remains rest at the Civil War Unknown Monument.
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