The grave of a Union soldier has finally been correctly marked after 125 years in a North Carolina grave mistakenly identified as belonging to a Confederate.
Pvt. Jacob Pfeiffer of New York has a new tombstone and was honored Saturday by about a dozen Civil War buffs and others in Raleigh's Oakwood cemetery, reported the Raleigh News & Observer Sunday.
Pfeiffer grew up on a farm in east Manhattan and was 21 when he died from wounds incurred during the Battle of Gettysburg. He was believed to be a North Carolina soldier until Civil War historian Charles Purser of Raleigh uncovered his true identity. The stone formerly standing over Pfeiffer's grave carried the name of Confederate Pvt. George Piper. The burial location of Piper's body is unknown.
Purser has authored a book about the cemetery's Confederate section entitled, "A Story Behind Every Stone." He thanked the Internet and a New York historian with helping him confirm Pfeiffer's true identity.
"It's such a wealth of information," Purser said about the Internet."Ten years ago I couldn't have found him."