At Arlington National Cemetery, there are individual Civil War unknown burials as well as the remains of 2,111 Union and Confederate soldiers buried beneath the Tomb of the Civil War Unknowns. Still, many unknown remains were recovered in the years following the Civil War. The system of national cemeteries was established in 1862 to ensure the proper burial of all service members. At Arlington National Cemetery, these include unknown soldiers and sailors from the War of 1812 who were discovered buried at the Washington Barracks and reburied at Arlington National Cemetery in 1905.ĭuring the Civil War (1861-1865), high casualty rates and lack of personal identification led to large numbers of unknowns originally buried along marching routes or battlefields. In the United States prior to the Civil War, unidentified remains were often buried in mass graves. Sometimes unidentified remains resulted from poor record keeping, the damage that weapons of war inflicted on bodies, or the haste required to bury the dead and mark gravesites. Through the ages, one of the consequences of warfare has been large numbers of unidentified dead. The Tomb has also served as a place of mourning and a site for reflection on military service.
Since 1921, it has provided a final resting place for one of America’s unidentified World War I service members, and Unknowns from later wars were added in 19. The neoclassical, white marble sarcophagus stands atop a hill overlooking Washington, D.C.
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