The Story Behind the Name
A Union soldiers musings on witnessing a camp burial.....

"...we, his fellow soldiers, his comrades, hard hearted wretches, calloused by many similar scenes will never give a second thought. How little, very little, we think of the grief produced by wars calamities. For every soldier who falls in battle , some one mourns. For every man who lies in hospital wards and of whom no note is taken, some one mourns. For the humblest soldier shot on picket. and of whose humble exit from the stage of life little is thought, some one mourns."

Ira M. Whitaker served with the 13th New Hampshire Volunteers. He was 16 years old when he died in camp of measles. Unlike the majority who died during the war he was not left where he fell, or placed in a shallow trench with the other battlefield dead. He was placed in a coffin fashioned from cracker boxes held together with saplings. A bottle was buried with him which contained a note with Ira's name and regiment written on it. His remains were later moved to the Fredericksburg National Cemetery.