EASTON CIVIL WAR SOLDIER BURIED IN ARLINGTON CEMETERY

Many young men from the Easton area served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War and many returned home to their families. One local Union soldier has the distinction of being the first casualty to ever be buried in the Arlington National Cemetery

William Henry Christman was born in Lehigh County, the second son of Jonas and Mary Anna’ “ (Albitz) Christman. Baptismal records indicate he was born on October 1, 1844; however, his Army enlistment lists his birth date as 1843. On March 25, 1864, William enlisted in Easton and was mustered in as a Private on the same day. He was twenty-one years old, single, and worked as a laborer in Easton. William is described as being five feet, seven and one-half inches tall with a florid complexion, grey eyes, and sandy hair. He had a scar on his left neck and three moles on his back. As an enlistee, he received a cash bonus of $60 and a government promissory note in the amount of $300.

Christman joined the 67^th PA Volunteer Infantry. His unit included recruits from Allegheny, Carbon, Clarion, Indiana, Jefferson, Monroe, Northampton, Pike, Schuylkill, Wayne, and Westmoreland counties as well as from the city of Philadelphia. During the War, the 67^th Volunteers lost 77 enlisted men in battle and 150 men lost to disease.

Shortly after enlisting, William sent a letter to his parents dated April 3, 1864. He wrote from “Camp Cat valenter” near Philadelphia that he “likes it very good we have enuph to eat ant drink ant more we don’t want for this present time.”  He continued by asking his father to put all his “papers” in his trunk to keep them for his return. In closing he wrote “please excuse my poor riting for I hafte write on my plait So I can’t write as good as I ate.”

By the end of April, Christman had been hospitalized with the measles. On May 1^st, he was transferred to Lincoln General Hospital north of Washington D. C. This hospital was built solely to care for Civil War casualties and was dismantled after 1865. William died here of peritonitis, a toxic inflammation of the abdomen, on May 11^th.  His personal effects included one hat, two flannel shirts, a pair of trousers, one blanket, a haversack, and a canteen.

Two days later, on May 13^th, 1864, William Christman was the first man to be buried in the unnamed cemetery at “Arlington House” the abandoned estate of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. When Lee resigned from the U.S. Army to take command of the Army of Northern Virginia,  the United States government seized his estate located across the Potomac River from Washington D.C. The decision to buy Union soldiers on the two hundred acre site was intended to discourage Lee from ever returning to his home there. It was on June 15, 1864 that Secretary of War Edwin M. Staunton formally named Arlington as a National Cemetery.

Today the Cemetery totals six hundred twenty four acres divided into seventy sections. Several sections are designated for veterans of a specific war; one section honors women who served in the military; another section holds the remains of freedmen, former slaves. Another area includes the bodies of Confederate soldiers, whose peaked headstones differ from the simple rounded stones used throughout other parts of the Cemetery.

Christman’s grave is in section 27. His simple headstone bears his name “William Christman PA #19. This number may be the result of the many re-numberings of the gravesites over the years. Although he was in the Army for only forty-eight days and apparently was never in a major engagement, his enlistment card has had the words “DISTINGUISHED SERVICE” added.

- Submitted by Elaine Greek