Confederate groups hold service for unknown soldiers buried in Williamsburg

WILLIAMSBURG — National officers of the United Daughters of the Confederacy were on hand for a solemn memorial service Friday morning at the graves of four unknown Civil War soldiers recently reburied at Williamsburg’s Cedar Grove Cemetery.

President General Julie Hardaway of South Carolina and Immediate Past President General Jinny Widowski of Ohio led a contingent of UDC officers and members, many having traveled distances, to the dedication of the site.

The skeletal remains of the soldiers, who died after the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg, were uncovered in late 2022 by archaeologists working at excavations around Colonial Williamsburg’s Powder Magazine. The bodies of the men, who died in an adjacent church that was used as a hospital after the battle, apparently had been tossed