Eleven Unknown Soldiers

Headstone marking the burial site of eleven unknown soldiers.

NPS

Quick Facts

Place of Burial:

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Cemetery Name:

Stones River National Cemetery

"This gave contains the remains of eleven unknown Soldiers"

That is the inscription on headstone O-6135 that only hints at the story that lies beneath. Years after the main effort to reinter U.S. Army soldiers who perished during the Civil War in Stones River National Cemetery, human bones were uncovered while the owners of a home near Asbury Lane were building a porch. The house served as a U.S. field hospital during the Battle of Stones River and fell into Confederate hands following the December 31, 1862 fighting along that road.

A crew from the national cemetery ultimately unearthed the skeletal remains of eleven soldiers. They also found about an equal number of U.S. and Confederate uniform buttons sacttered among the bones. Field hospital staff often cared for friend and foe alike while the fighting raged in the long days and weeks that followed. 

The remains and buttons are interred in a single site off the southeastern edge of Section-O. Although it was not the U.S. government's intent to bury Confederate soldiers in Stones River NationalCemetery, it seems likely that a few may lie in the hallowed ground of plot O-6135 mingled with the men they fought against during the last day of 1862.