FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Saturday the Veterans National Memorial Shrine and Museum and family members came together to honor veterans of the Civil War through a headstone dedication of a previously unmarked grave and more.

Saturday celebrations started with honoring Civil War veteran Daniel H. Amsden who had been buried in an unmarked grave in Lindenwood Cemetary since his death in 1881. Amsden was enlisted as a private in Company B, 12th Indiana Cavalry of the Union Army. He served for three years before he was discharged. He was married to Polly and had nine children. When visiting Fort Wayne, Amsden contracted smallpox from his daughter, he died a month later at age 55.

William Stump, a senior vice commander of the New York Department of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW), was the one to investigate the unmarked grave earlier this year with an Indiana member of SUVCW Thomas Schmitt.

“Lindenwood is grateful for William Stump because without him inquiring about Mr. Amsden’s unmarked grave with Thomas Schmitt, we don’t know how long this soldier’s grave would have gone unmarked,” said Amber Gonzalez, general manager of Lindenwood Cemetery. “Mr. Amdsens’s family was relieved that his grave was finally marked, giving them a place to honor his legacy.”

The second ceremony of the day was a dedication of the Sultana Monument at the Veterans Memorial Park. The memorial was to honor a Civil War-era disaster that happened weeks after the war ended. On April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana exploded and sank in the Mississippi River killing 1,700 recently released prisoner of war Union soldiers.

The third ceremony of the day honored all soldiers of the Civil War and was recently donated by Chris Bickel and her late husband Glen.