Mainers to honor mysterious Confederate soldier

DURHAM – Whenever Roger and Judy Beverage travel in the South, they bring a couple of Confederate flags back to Maine.

On Memorial Day, the Yarmouth couple drives to Strout Cemetery on Route 9 in Durham with a flag and fresh flowers. Judy often plays “Dixie” on her fife while Roger, a Civil War re-enactor, cleans the unmarked grave site.

There are several tales about how a Confederate’s grave could have ended up in Yankee territory. There’s also some doubt about whether an unnamed soldier is in fact buried there.

But on Saturday, the Beverages will participate in a ceremony in which a granite headstone will be dedicated to the unknown soldier they believe lies in the plot.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War are sponsoring the ceremony, which will be attended by several Civil War re-enactment groups.

Charles Anthony, a former Civil War re-enactor who lives in Durham, started hearing the stories about the Confederate soldier when he moved to Durham 28 years ago.

“I said to myself, ‘That’s just like Big Foot surfing in Hawaii. I’ve got to go see that for myself,”‘ he recalled.

Ever since, he and the Beverages have shared the responsibility of placing a Confederate flag at the site.

“He’s a Confederate soldier; I think he should have a Confederate flag,” Roger Beverage said.

According to the most popular story about the grave, a Durham couple found a man in a gray Confederate uniform in the casket that was supposed to contain the body of their son. Unsure of where they should send the casket, they buried the man in the corner of Strout Cemetery.

Another tale says that the fallen Confederate was mistakenly sent to Maine instead of Durham, N.C. In yet another telling, the soldier dies on his way to Canada after his escape from a New York prison.

“Everything that everyone says is only hearsay,” said Beverly Koenig, a Durham historian who has researched and cataloged every cemetery in town. “I would love to be able to tell people, ‘Yeah, there is a Confederate soldier buried there.’ But I don’t want to be wrong. I can’t swear on it.”

Koenig and others have not been able to unearth any records, letters or newspaper articles that explain the grave site. And, she said, there’s no proof that the casket exists.

But that hasn’t stopped local veterans groups from moving forward with their plans.

Cynthia Holmes, a member of the New England chapter of the Daughters of Confederacy, decided this year to try to raise money for the headstone. Maine Memorial in South Portland offered to donate the $1,500 granite slab marked “unknown.”

The Beverages said that despite controversies elsewhere surrounding symbols of the Confederacy, there hasn’t been any opposition to the plans for the grave. They said that the presence of the flag is meant to honor one man, not make a political statement.

“Even though he was Confederate solider, he was a Civil War soldier,” Judy Beverage said. “And he is an American veteran.”