South Carolina’s Unknown Soldier
In the fall of 1985, during construction of the townhouses and condominiums to your front, the grave of a Confederate soldier was found near what was the north-most corner of the old Reid cornfield (near the 1862 fence corner).
The soldier’s lower jaw had been shot away and a .58 caliber bullet was found with the remains. He was identified as a South Carolinian from General Maxcy Gregg’s brigade. His uniform buttons bore the letters “S C” with a palmetto tree, the emblem of South Carolina. Gregg’s brigade lost 104 men killed and wounded in the Ox Hill battle.
When newspapers reported the discovery in 1986, representatives of Confederate history and heritage organizations took the remains home to Columbia, S. C. where the soldier received full state and military honors. There, the flag draped coffin rested near the altar in the War Memorial Building at the University of South Carolina. An honor guard of Confederate reenactment soldiers wearing black mourning ribbons, with muskets at shoulder arms, kept a vigil through the night.
The next morning, a ceremony honoring the fallen soldier was held on the steps of the State Capitol. There were speeches and invocations and several thousand people watched as the Lt. Governor presented the soldier with the “Order of the Palmetto”, the state’s highest honor. A vocalist sang Dixie and the Bonnie Blue Flag. Then the wagon bearing the coffin was escorted to Elmwood Cemetery accompanied by marching troops and a fife and drum corps playing a dirge. There in the shade of the trees, South Carolina’s “last Confederate son” was finally laid to rest, November 22, 1986.