Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 15, 1993 TAG: 9311150060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium
Ward, a private in the Georgia Volunteer infantry, was wounded July 21, 1861, at the first Battle of Manassas. He died two weeks later, one of 847 Union and Confederate soldiers killed in the war's first major battle.
Someone erected a plain red sandstone grave marker that bears Ward's name. And someone apparently stole the marker many years later. It was discovered in the garage of a Manassas home two years ago and turned over to the National Park Service.
The marker has sat in a storage closet at the Park Service office at the Manassas National Battlefield ever since. Park officials say they need congressional approval before placing the marker atop what historians believe is Ward's grave.
Historians and members of Ward's family in Georgia believe the body is in a quiet plot near the battlefield. The plot was the family burying ground for a local farmer who may have cared for Ward as he died.
"We're not angry, demanding people by any means," said Judson Ward, 81, grandson of Benjamin Ward's brother Thomas. "We think it's very foolish for that headstone to lie in a cabinet over at the Park Service."
The retired Emory University history professor said he cannot understand the bureaucracy preventing park officials from simply handing over the stone.
Betty Duley, a member of the Prince William County historical commission, has led a letter-writing campaign to see the headstone returned.
"How could the National Park Service, of all people, harbor a stolen tombstone?" she said.
Park Superintendent Kenneth Apschnikat said he is merely complying with strict rules governing how the Park Service handles historic artifacts.
The Park Service apparently has no plans to display the marker. But as long as it remains part of the Manassas park's collection, officials are barred from donating it back to the Ward family, Apschnikat said.
"I regret to inform you that the National Park Service does not have the congressional authority to relinquish an item once it has been accepted and cataloged into the park artifact collection," Apschnikat wrote in a May 4 letter to Ward.
Only Congress can change the rules governing artifacts, Apschnikat said.
Dennis Ekberg, chairman of the county historical commission, asked for help this month from Sen. Charles Robb. Ekberg asked the senator to introduce a bill returning the stone.
"We're going to try and help," said Robb aide Peggy Wilhide. "We're in the process of assigning it to a case worker."
by CNB