Nov 7, 2007 7:13 am US/Central
Minn. Soldier Identified After 144 Years
Raleigh, N.C. (WCCO) ―
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This is a look at the cemetery through a wreath that was placed at Private John O. Dolson's grave.
CBS
History
classes teach us about wars and the soldiers who fought them. Yet, for as long
as the Civil War has been over a Minnesota
soldier's story has remained untold. We traveled to Raleigh, N.C.,
where history was recently rewritten.
Sunlight
signaled a new beginning in a place that honors life's end. It was there that a
Minnesota
soldier's sacrifice sat unrecognized for more than a century.
Retired Air Force Intelligence
Officer's Tireless Efforts
When
Retired Air Force intelligence officer Charles Purser first saw the Civil War cemetery
in North Carolina,
he couldn't believe the conditions.
"I
didn't even know this section was up here because you couldn't see anything,"
said Purser. "It was first overgrown with briars and weeds. I thought it's too bad they
didn't have their own headstones."
This
was the final resting spot for 1,400 Confederate soldiers but there was nothing
to identify them. No names, no hint of where they died, only a stone imprinted with
a number.
Purser
decided that wasn't enough these soldiers deserved more.
"I
wanted to give every soldier their name in here," said Purser.
He
searched through a century's worth of handwritten records including a catalogue
of the dead written in 1871.
"A
lot of the names were misspelled and they didn't have the complete units on a
lot of them," he said.
He
carefully pieced together the lives of more than a thousand Confederate
soldiers remembering them each by the one thing they lacked all those years: their
name.
"We
have John O. Dobson of the 2nd North
Carolina, who died on the 3rd of September. So I
ordered his headstone sometime in the 1990s," Purser said.
Private
Dobson's story stood out. He joined the military at age 19, was injured on the
frontlines of Gettysburg
and died in a hospital surrounded by other soldiers.
"When
the 137 Gettysburg soldiers came back, they were
all supposed to have been North Carolinians,"
Purser recalled.
The Call that Changed Everything
Last
December a phone call from a Civil War buff in New York changed everything.
"He
says, 'Chuck I think you got a Yankee down there,'" Purser recalled.
So
he went back over the paperwork and found something unexpected.
"I
checked the census records and couldn't find John O. Dobson, but there was a
quite a bit on John O. Dolson," said Purser.
Both
died the same day, both joined the military at age 19. They had too much in
common to be two different people.
It
turns out Private Dobson buried in this North Carolina
cemetery was actually Private Dolson from Richfield,
Minn.
Instead
of having been with the 2nd North Carolina Infantry, Private Dolson was
actually part of the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, an elite group of Union soldiers,
making him the only Union soldier buried in an all Confederate cemetery.
Purser
suspects the wooden markers that once identified the dead soldiers was written
wrong in the records. Instead of putting an "L," he thinks someone
jotted down a "B," turning Dolson into Dobson.
"We don't know how it happened," said Purser.
Tribute Planned
Purser
knew he had to make history right. So he ordered a new stone and helped plan a
fitting tribute.
"I
think it's wonderful. I really do," said Bob Farrell, a member of the Sons
of Union Veterans who now lives in North
Carolina.
It
is not necessarily the reaction you'd expect in the south where the war wounds
haven't completely healed. However stories like this have a way of bringing
people together.
"True
students of that war and truly American patriots, I think, will just look at it and say, 'He's an
American soldier,'" said retired Lieutenant Colonel Sion Harrington, III.
True
patriots like Charles Purser, whose purpose in life fittingly turned into
providing a fallen soldier with a proper burial.
It
may have taken 144 years, but this Minnesota
soldier found peace on southern soil where now his name and his story live on.
Original Stone on Display in Richfield
A
stone marker placed in front of Private Dolson's grave in North Carolina now explains his story.
His
old headstone is back here in Minnesota.
A group from the Honoring All brought the stone to Richfield. It's currently on display at the Richfield Historical Society.
It
will eventually find a permanent home near another marker honoring one of the
city's famous veterans: the last
flagraiser on Iwo Jima -- Chuck Lindberg.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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