This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Those of you who have visited Arlington National Cemetery and stood reverently in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier might want to visit the grave of an unknown Civil War soldier closer to home.
The soldier's grave lies on a gentle bluff above the Mississippi River in the Hampton, Illinois, cemetery. The only grave marker is the standard Grand Army of the Republic sandstone with a curved top. The inscription reads “US SOLDIER,” and beneath it, “1ST US CAVALRY.” No one knows how or when he died.
There are no cemetery documents or town records to indicate how the soldier ended up in Hampton. We can speculate that he was one of a small number of men who enlisted in the regular army rather than one of the more common state companies made up of volunteers. At the beginning of the war, some ten thousand such regulars were scattered throughout the Mississippi Valley region in small detachments.
That suggests the possibility, at least, that he was a recent immigrant who spoke little or no English. Regulars tended to come from this group. Perhaps he became a casualty when separated from his unit, and no one could identify him.
How did the soldier come to lie in the Hampton Cemetery, so far from fields of battle, from Shiloh or Antietam or Bull Run? Sketchy historical records suggest that there was a group after the Civil War that provided unknown soldiers to cemeteries who wished to have one as a memorial. Hampton did have a strong Grand Army of the Republic post, and a very active Sons of Union Veterans as well. Perhaps they wished to pay tribute to an unknown comrade.
“US SOLDIER, 1ST US CAVALRY,” Hampton Cemetery has no grand monument to mark his place; he has no Marine guards standing stiffy at attention, but he is not honored the less. His monuments are the rolling hills of Illinois, and his guard, the formal, slowly moving current of the Mississippi shining down below.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by the Scott County Regional Authority, with additional funding from the Illinois Arts Council and Augustana College, Rock Island.
