I originally snapped this photograph rather unthinkingly, as I do tend to photograph any stone that has a GAR marker next to it Someone else pointed out to me the date, so I walked around to the other side, expecting to find Alex’s father or uncle was of an age more likely to have served in the Civil War. Instead, I found what is more likely to be his son, who died in France during the First World War.
So was Alex Thompson, who was born in 1852 and therefore would have been only about 13 at the close of the war in 1865, really a veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic? He is buried, after all, only a stone’s throw from Charles Seebold, who was a drummer for the 1st United States Cavalry when he died at age 14 or 15 in 1864, and the National Civil War Museum displays stated that the youngest documented drummer boy was only 9.
Or, as sometimes happens, is the GAR marker there for an otherwise unmarked burial of a Civil War veteran?
A Grave Concern 