Stop 1: William Showers
Grave #4084
Following the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the Confederate and Union armies moved back into Virginia. While the 1864 Overland Campaign, beginning with the Battle of the Wilderness, in May is the next major engagement between the opponents, there were smaller engagements and campaigns in between. One such campaign is the Mine Run Campaign, which occured just past the Wilderness Battlefield in Orange County. Casualties of this lesser known engagement, and others like it, were also included here in the national cemetery.
One such casualty is Private William Showers of the 1st United States Sharp Shooters. The nineteen year old was killed at Locust Grove on November 27, 1863 when he was shot through the head. His burial here in the cemetery is unique because it is one of the few graves in which more than one identified soldier are buried together. Showers is buried in a single grave with three identified comrades of the 1st USSS, and an early register of the cemetery shows that there may also be two unidentified soldiers of the same unit buried there as well.