Floyd County GaArchives Photo tombstone.....The Known Soldier August 2 2002
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Sharlyn Shaw shaw208@comcast.net February 7, 2004, 6:43 pm

Source: Myrtle Hill Cemetery, Rome, Floyd County, Georgia
Photo can be seen at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/floyd/photos/tombstones/myrtlehill/ph612theknown.jpg
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Here lies in honored glory an American soldier

PVT. Charles W. Graves

In March, 1922 the troopship Cambria returned the final 1,065 bodies of the 
known dead to the United States. The last body removed was Charles W. Graves, 
designated as “Representative of the Nation’s Known Dead of the World War”. 

On April 2 a memorial service was held at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Four Army 
generals and four Navy admirals carried the body of Private Graves. Thousands 
of Gold Star mothers, U. S. Senators, Representatives and Governors attended.

President Warren G. Harding’s eulogy, delivered beside Graves’ flag draped 
casket contained these lines: They have set for all of us the perfect example 
of service and sacrifice and it is well that their associates should, through 
this tribute, remind the nation of its eternal obligation to prove worthy of 
the devotion its sons have shown for it.

National plans directed that America’s Known Soldier be placed beside The Tomb 
of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The Graves family 
requested his body be returned to his native Georgia.

Graves was interred at Antioch Church Cemetery, Callier Springs Road on April 
6, 1922. Hundreds marched from Broad Street and Second Avenue to the small 
wooden church. Armistice Day services were conducted there November 11, 1922.

On September 22, 1923 Graves’ body was removed from Antioch and interred at 
Myrtle Hill – his third burial.

On the fifth anniversary of the end of The World War, Armistice Day 1923 was 
observed at the Myrtle Hill site. Shanklin – Attaway Post 5, The American 
Legion, provided the marble slab and two bonze tablets which are Graves’ 
memorial. Three 1904 model machine guns have stood guard at the site since 
that date. Hundreds attended the service, including Governor Clifford Walker, 
every civic group in Rome, and most of Rome / Floyd County’s school children.

Graves’ commanding officer, Gen. C. F. Spence, attended the memorial service, 
together with Gen. E. M. Lewis, Commander, 8th Corp. Area, who delivered the 
Address of Dedication, saying, “He has given all that he had…what could any 
man do more?”

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In Memoriam
Byard Gordon Quigg, USMC
Killed in Action WWII 1944

Given By
Julia Quigg Dodd
and Family


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