BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) - A Confederate gravestone at Beaufort National Cemetery now has a name.
The Island Packet reported (https://bit.ly/1fZr5hY) the marker is now engraved with the name of Private Haywood Treadwell. A 5-year-old North Carolina boy who carries the same last name and is one of Treadwell’s descendants unveiled the marker to about 100 people in a ceremony Saturday.
Treadwell was from Sampson County, North Carolina, and a member of the 61st North Carolina volunteers fighting in the rifle pits at Battery Wagner on Morris Island when he was wounded and captured Aug. 26, 1863. He died in a Union hospital in Beaufort 17 days later.
His identity remained a mystery until a Beaufort woman researching that hospital, the William Wigg Barnwell House, discovered in 2010 that Treadwell may have been buried anonymously because of a misspelled name.
“There were never any stories about this in our family,” said descendent Vicky Scarboro, 55, of Raeford, North Carolina. “We didn’t even know we were Confederate on this side (of the family). It makes you want to go back further.”
She was among 12 descendants who attended the ceremony, including Henry Treadwell II, who unveiled the marker.
As the ceremony ended, the gathering sang “Dixie,” and a color guard marched across the lawn, followed by a few historical re-enactors.
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Information from: The Island Packet, https://www.islandpacket.com
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