D.C. Cemetery For Civil War Dead To Be Rededicated
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Park Service says a cemetery holding the graves of 41 Union soldiers who died defending Washington in the Civil War is to be rededicated this Memorial Day weekend.
Spokesman Bill Line says the National Battleground Cemetery in Northwest will be rededicated at 11 a.m. Saturday by authorities with a salute from a U.S. Army color guard. "Taps" will be played.
Line says the Union soldiers died at the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864. Confederates attacked Washington's defenses but were thwarted in a bid to capture the capital.
The cemetery's original dedication date isn't known, but war veterans had said President Abraham Lincoln was on hand then. The slain soldiers represented New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine.
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