Teenage Union Soldier To Be Buried In Arlington National Cemetery

FAIRFAX, VA — One hundred sixty-four years after his death, a teenage Union soldier will be laid to rest alongside his comrades at Arlington National Cemetery, The Washington Post reports.

The remains of the soldier, estimated to have been about 17 years old and 5 feet 2 inches tall, were found at Manassas National Battlefield Park. Researchers believe he fought in the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862 and was fatally wounded by Confederate artillery.

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Estimates suggest that more than 200,000 soldiers under 18 served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Researchers say he was likely wounded elsewhere on the battlefield and taken toward a field hospital. Severed limbs, discarded by Civil War surgeons after amputations, were also found in the area.

His remains will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors Nov. 4.

He is not the first Civil War soldier found at the battlefield in recent years. The remains of two other Union soldiers were discovered in 2015 and buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 2018.

The latest remains were found in 2024 after excavations resumed following delays caused in part by funding issues and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Second Battle of Bull Run was a brutal three-day fight that ended in a Confederate victory. About 1,200 Confederate soldiers and 1,700 Union soldiers were killed, with another 14,000 wounded across both armies.

"We were able to determine for all three of them exactly how they were killed," Brandon S. Bies, a Park Service military archaeologist, told the Post. "And it was gruesome and horrible and their families never found out what happened to them."