Grave Injustice: Family of Union Soldier Fights to Have His Final Resting Place Marked

http://www.vnews.com/home/16988429-95/grave-injustice-family-of-union-soldier-fights-to-have-his-final-resting-place-marked

By Matt Hongoltz-Hetling
Valley News Staff Writer
Sunday, May 24, 2015
(Published in print: Sunday, May 24, 2015)

In the months before Moses Elkins, of Troy, Vt., gave his life for his country, he endured almost unimaginable deprivation. His bones, mixed in a jumble with those of hundreds of other American soldiers, now lie in the earth, beneath the neatly manicured grass of a national cemetery. At the least — at the very least, say his relatives — Elkins’ heroic service should be memorialized with a granite marker that bears his name.

But, in a decision that affects more than 100 soldiers from Vermont and New Hampshire, the Department of Veterans Affairs has declined to erect a marker with Elkins’ name. The VA also won’t give anyone else permission to put up a marker on the national cemetery with his name. The reason given by VA officials is that they’re not sure Elkins is actually buried in the series of trenches once dug at Salisbury National Cemetery in North Carolina. It’s difficult to determine, they say, because of the dates of Elkins’ service.

He didn’t fight in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Vietnam or Korea. He didn’t fight in either of the world wars. Moses Elkins was a Yankee soldier in the Civil War, a conflict that, according to some estimates, killed more Americans than all those other wars, combined.

Although Elkins died more than 150 years ago, the debate surrounding his remains is heating up because time might be running out.

FULL story at link.