Unknown Tomb of First Unknowns

The Unknown Soldier monument in Washington Square, Philadelphia, features(back to front) a pillared wall on which is inscribed part of George Washington’s farewell address to Congress, a bronze statue of Washington modeled from life, a sarcophagus containing the remains of a Revolutionary War soldier, and an eternal flame.
Photo courtesy City of Philadelphia

Despite impressive ceremonies recently at Arlington National Ceremony -- honoring three unknown soldiers of the First World War, World War II and Korean War -- the tomb of America’s first unknown soldier lies nearly forgotten in a Philadelphia park.

An unknown soldier of the Revolutionary War – officially designated for perpetual honor -- is interred there in a sarcophagus resting on a marble slab. Presiding over him is a life-size bronze statue of George Washington.

No guards march in solemn cadence. There are few visitors. No flowers or speeches or bugles.

This lonely outpost of forgotten history marks the final resting place of more than 2,000 other unknown patriots of 1776.

They were victims of British rifles or of prison pestilence in the city jail across Walnut Street – or in the captured Pennsylvania State House -- bereft of its Liberty Bell (see At Large 3/18/03 “That Pesky Crack”)

Military historian Bob Alotta says that during the war, a large body of continental soldiers and militia were captured by the British and held in Philadelphia – then an occupied city.

A smallpox epidemic among the closely confined Americans caused great suffering and many deaths. Colonial solders who died were quickly buried in Southeast Square near the jail. No records were made of their names.

More Revolutionary dead are buried there than at any other place in the nation.

John Adams’ Visit

After the British withdrew in 1777, John Adams – a delegate of the Continental Congress and future president of the United States --visited the site and noted its significance:

“I have spent an hour this morning in the Congregation Of The Dead. I took a walk into the Potter’s Field, a burying ground between the new stone prison and the hospital. I never in my whole life was affected with so much melancholy.

“Graves of soldiers, who have been buried in this ground, from the hospital and bettering-house during the course of last summer, fall and winter -- dead of the small pox and camp diseases -- are enough to make the heart of stone melt away!

“The sexton told me that upwards of 2,000 soldiers had been buried there. By the appearance of the grave and trenches, it is most probable to me that he speaks within bounds.

“To what causes this plague is to be attributed, I don’t know. Disease had destroyed ten men for us where the sword of the enemy has killed one!”

Historian Watson interviewed a survivor of the Walnut Street Jail military incarceration some years after the war. The veteran, Jacob Ritter, recalled:

“Prisoners were fed nothing for days on end and were regularly targets of beatings by the British guards.

“The prison was freezing, as broken window panes allowed snow and cold to be the only blankets available to the captives. Ice, mice and lice shared the cells.

“Desperate prisoners dined on grass roots, scraps of leather and pieces of a rotten pump. Rats were a delicacy.

“Upward of a dozen prisoners died daily. They were hauled across the street and slung in unmarked trenches like carcasses from an abattoir.”

Early Plans

“President Washington said in his farewell address to the nation that the men would not be forgotten,” states Alotta. “But sometimes, politicians don’t live up to their promises.

Philadelphia City Council changed the name of Southeast Square to Washington Square in 1825 as a tribute to our first president. With this, the former mass-graveyard became an upscale professional neighborhood.

The Council in 1833 authorized construction of a “suitable monument” to the dead patriots. A cornerstone was laid, but the monument was never built.

President Lincoln suggested a tangible memorial. It was proposed again during the Centennial of 1876.

At Last

Year after year, however, the project languished. Finally, in 1954, the Washington Square Planning Committee of area businessmen took the matter in hand. They gathered public donations with which to build the long-delayed memorial to unknown soldiers there.

A team of five archaeologists dug nine exploratory pits. One was a trench three-deep with mass burials. There they found the bones of a male -- about 20 years old -- whose skull had been creased by a bullet. This was chosen for the Unknown Soldier.

Architect G. Edwin Brumbaugh designed the central monument surrounded by a park of pool, ornamental trees and brick walkways.

The monument itself consists of several parts. A stone backdrop bears an inscription from Washington’s Farewell Address: “Freedom is a light for which many men have died in darkness.”

Before this stands a life-size statue of Washington by Jean Antoine Houdon, a French sculptor who was considered the most distinguished neoclassicist of his time. It is a 1922 bronze cast of a marble original dating from 1790 – the only full-length statue of Washington modeled from life.

The general’s left hand rests on a column of fasces, the bundle of rods that symbolizes official authority and political unity.

At his feet is a sarcophagus holding the remains of the unknown Revolutionary War soldier. On it is inscribed: “Beneath this stone rests a soldier of Washington’s army who died to give you liberty.”

A memorial flame burns in front. The approach is lined with 14 silver-plated flagpoles to bear battle standards of the 13 colonies and the unified nation they formed.

Nearby is a living monument – the Bicentennial Moon Tree – grown from seed carried to the moon by Apollo astronaut Stuart Roosa and planted in honor of the nation’s 200th anniversary.

The Official Tomb

National pressure for remembrance of all war dead intensified shortly after the Civil War.

Memorial Day was first proclaimed for May 30, 1858, by John A. Logan, then a congressman from Illinois and head of the veterans’ Grand Army of the Republic. He had served as a major general for the Union during the war.

He ordered the GAR to “decorate the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” The South had already begun decorating the graves of Confederate soldiers. It was many years before Memorial Day was universally recognized.

The concept of an official, National Tomb for an unknown soldier killed in battle originated among several allies after the First World War.

The U.S. Quartermaster Corps says that in the fall of 1920, four casketed remains of U.S. unidentified soldiers were brought to the little French town of Chalon-sur-Marne.

Lt.Cdr. R.P. Harbold, chief of the U.S. Graves Registration Service, summoned one of the pallbearers – Sgt. Edward F. Younger, a highly decorated infantryman – to select the Unknown Soldier.

Younger later described his awesome experience: “I went into the room and walked around the caskets three times. Suddenly I stopped. It was as though something had pulled me. A voice seemed to say ‘This is a pal of yours.’ I made my selection by placing a single white rose on the coffin.”

The remains were later transported to the French port of LeHavre, put onboard Admiral Dewey’s famous flagship USS Olympia, and sailed for home. The three other unknowns were returned to the U.S. Military Cemetery from which they had been summoned.

The selected body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda for two days as more than 90,000 people quietly filed by.

This brave soldier – whose identify will forever be a mystery -- was formally interred on native soil.

Since then, the remains of an unknown soldier from World War II and Korea also have been interred in the Tomb of Unknowns – guarded night and day by specially chosen and trained representatives from the four branches of military service.

Remains of a Vietnam serviceman was interred there but later were identified by DNA analysis. He was exhumed for burial in his families’ plot.

Author: Lindsey Williams

OTHER CUTLINES

2 – 3 col. Head and shoulder view, bald head,

John Adams, a delegate to the Continental Congress, fled with the newly proclaimed government to Baltimore when the British occupied Philadelphia during the early part of the Revolutionary War. He returned seven months later to lament mass graves of Patriot soldiers.

Ooooooooo

3 – 3 col. George Washington standing at table

Portrait courtesy New York City Library

President George Washington, in his farewell speech to Congress and the citizens of the United States, praised the soldiers who died in the struggle for freedom. The sentiment is inscribed on the backdrop wall of Philadelphia’s tomb for the nation’s first unknown soldier.

Oooooooo

4 – 3 col. casket on horse-drawn caisson

Photo courtesy U.S. Quartermaster Museum

First Unknown Soldier to be interred in the official Tomb of Unknowns at the Arlington National Cemetery was selected in France from U.S. Military Cemeteries there. The French Army carried the hero by horse-drawn caisson to Admiral Dewey’s historic flagship for shipment back to the United States.

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Photo – National Monument

6 – OPTIONAL

Photo – President Bush laying wreath