Civil War Historian Brad Quinlin is pictured at Marietta National Cemetery, Georgia on Memorial Day. Each Memorial Day, veterans groups and others place an American Flag on every veteran’s grave in a National Cemetery. After the Civil War, 10,312 bodies of Union soldiers who died in the Atlanta Campaign, were interned in Marietta. In this photo Quinlin is kneeling beside Grave 8190, that of Private John O’Neil, 18th Missouri Infantry. O’Neil was born in Kilkenny in 1818. He joined the 18th at age 42 in Boone County, Missouri. O’Neil fought his way to Chattanooga, Tennessee where the 18th Missouri joined General Sherman's Atlanta Campaign. O’Neil then fought his way south, fighting at Look Out Mountain, Resaca, Allatoona Hills, Kennesaw Mountain and the Battle of Atlanta where his luck ran out - not from a confederate bullet or cannon ball, but by illness. O’Neil who came to America, fought to preserve the Union and died without family to remember him. But he is now remembered. Photo courtesy Steve Reilly.
