Confederate Soldier Laid to Rest With Home State Honors
An unknown Confederate soldier, killed during a skirmish in Virginia in 1862, was awarded South Carolina’s highest honor Saturday and buried in his home state.
A horse-drawn wagon carried the soldier’s coffin, draped with a Confederate battle flag, from the Statehouse, down Main Street to a cemetery where other unknown soldiers of the Civil War are buried.
In a ceremony on the Statehouse steps, Lt. Gov.-elect Nick Theodore presented the Confederate with “The Order of the Palmetto,” the highest honor bestowed by the South Carolina governor.
“We are gathered today to honor a South Carolinian who like so many other soldiers has a name that is known only to God,” Theodore said.
Developers of a town house complex in Fairfax County, Va., unearthed the soldier’s remains. With the bones, diggers found four brass buttons bearing the insignia of a palmetto tree and the letters “S.C.”
The unknown Confederate soldier is believed to have died during a skirmish near Manassas Junction, Va. He probably served under Confederate hero Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson.
More to Read
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.