Group works to uncover lost Civil War graves in Manassas

On this Veterans Day, there's an effort to find the remains of Civil War soldiers. This is happening just outside of the Manassas National Battlefield Park. And that is where Fox 5's Josh Rosenthal is tonight with more on the work that's already underway. The belief is that a Civil War soldier is buried right here. Now a group is working to figure out for sure. So, this is before we had dog tags in the U.S. military. So, when people fell, often the family didn't even know where they fell or where they were buried. They just never heard from them again. That is Cherie Johnston, who's the executive director of the Manassas Battlefield Trust. This is a monument to Timothy Dunklin, a Texan who, at age 16, fought for the Confederacy in in the Second Battle of Manassas during the Civil War. Dunklin died in August of 1862. His family traveled to purchase a small piece of land and build the monument, which Johnston says was unusual for the time. Now, flash forward more than 150 years, and Johnston's group is working on a major project. Their hope is to raise money to use what's called ground-penetrating radar to confirm the location of Dunklin's remains and to see if other Civil War soldiers, those who fought for both sides, may be buried nearby. Then, they completely restore Dunklin's monument and recreate the area so it becomes a public space people can visit. Johnston did say that she's gotten some questions about preserving a Confederate soldier's grave. In that time period, to Americans, your state was your country, if you think about the way the nation was at that time. And so some of the decisions to go fight, for example, for Texas, may not necessarily have been that they wanted to go fight because they wanted to. continue a practice as horrible as slavery. It may have been that they were going with their neighbors because everybody in town had signed up and enlisted and that's what they were doing. One last thing, Johnston says that if they do uncover additional remains, Confederate soldiers would be buried in this general area. Union soldiers would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with honors. She says that the way they can typically tell who fought for who is the soldier's buttons. Guys.