Gone But Not Forgotten

We see a lot of quirky things in our Civil War travels. Today, at Union Cemetery in Leesburg, Virginia, we saw this: the grave of Cadet Charles R. Norris, son of John and Hannah S. Norris, born May 12, 1844, killed in battle at Manassas Junction, July 21, 1861. He was, according to his gravestone, aged 17 years, 2 months, and 9 days.

His grave stood out because, amid the drab-gray and dirty-white granite and marble grave markers, his wore a bright splash of color. Someone had draped the first national flag of the Confederacy over Norris’s gravestone—actually obscuring his name—and fastened it there with bungee chords.  A bungee chord holds it to the C.S.A. Maltese cross in front of his grave, too.