ELMIRA, N.Y. (AP) — A descendant of a Confederate soldier who died in a Civil War prison camp in New York says the wrong name is on his gravestone, and the Department of Veterans Affairs won’t fix it.
Tom Fagart of Concord, North Carolina, tells the Star-Gazette of Elmira (http://stargaz.tt/1pDS9S1 ) that his great-great-grandfather Pvt. Franklin Cauble was buried with the last name Cooper engraved on his gravestone at Woodlawn National Cemetery.
Fagart says Cauble and a soldier named Cooper were friends who enlisted on the same day, served in the same regiment and were captured on the same day in Petersburg, Virginia.
Fagart says both men were sent to Elmira’s prison camp, where Cauble died in 1864. Cooper was released after the war ended in 1865.
The VA says it doesn’t correct historic gravestones.
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Information from: Star-Gazette, http://www.stargazette.com
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