A Nameless Grave
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A soldier of the Union mustered out,”
is the inscription on an unknown grave
at Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout
shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout
of battle when the loud artillery drave
its iron wedges through the ranks of brave
and doomed battalions, storming the redoubt.
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
in thy forgotten grave. With secret shame
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,
when I remember thou hadst given for me
all that thou hadst, thy life, thy very name,
and I can give thee nothing in return.
And in honor of the 252 valiant American sailors – 5 Confederate, 247 Union – who gave their lives to defend a cause they believed to be just on March 8, 1862, during the battle off Newport News between the Confederate ironclad Virginia (ex-Merrimack), 2 killed; the Confederate gunboats Raleigh and Beaufort, 3 killed; the Union sloop-of-war Cumberland, 121 killed; the Union frigate Congress, 120 killed; the Union steam frigate Minnesota, 3 killed; and the Union steam tender Whitehall, 3 killed. This was the day before the celebrated duel between the C.S.S. Virginia and the U.S.S. Monitor which ended in a draw and in which no lives were lost.
This tablet installed 1965 by
Braxton – Perkins Post No. 25
of
The American Legion
Marker can be reached from the intersection of West Avenue and 27th Street, on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
