Georgia historian on mission to identify Civil War remains

MARIETTA, Ga. - Brad Quinlin is well-known as a local Civil War historian.  But he’s also something of a detective, crisscrossing the country to collect puzzle pieces — like service and medical records — in an effort to tell the stories of soldiers buried without names.

"So many of these stories have never been told," Quinlin says. "I felt it was important in today’s world that we tell this story the best we could."

Quinlin’s latest project concerns the remains of a Union soldier — including a skull, uniform buttons, a belt buckle, and a Confederate bullet called a Minie ball — found along the Chattahoochee River in 1951.

"I have a very, very dear friend … he’s a World War II veteran and he’s been collecting Civil War items since 1933. This was given to him as a gift in a collection," Quinlin says.

Quinlin says forensic work has revealed the remains are that of a man of African descent, likely a Union stretcher-bearer who risked his own life to carry wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Quinlin is now on a mission to identify the man and eventually lay him to rest at Marietta National Cemetery.

"From everything I have, the documentation and the books that I have found, I’ve narrowed it to four men right now and their names. They were all in the 16th Army Corps Division that actually was at that bridge crossing."

The soldier will be honored this weekend with several events in Marietta, including an original play and the singing of spirituals by renowned artist and researcher Dr. Oral Moses.

"The spirituals are really an outcry of those Africans about the plight of their life," Moses says. "And, of course, for soldiers — even Union soldiers in those days — they took the spiritual with them on the battlefield."

An emotional weekend ahead for Brad Quinlin and many others, honoring the story of a man forgotten no longer.

For more information, contact Brad Quinlin through tolearnyourhistory.com.

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