A monument to honor two Confederate soldiers executed by Union troops after the surrender at Appomattox was rededicated today on a hillside just north of New Market, Va., as a color guard dressed in gray held flapping flags and taps was played.

In the world of Civil War monuments, this nine-foot-tall, weathered, white marble obelisk is unusual because it marks the site not of a battle or a hospital but a small patch of ground where two Confederate soldiers were shot to death for the crime of stealing horses. The twist is that they had already returned the horses and had received a pardon.

The Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia will grow by176 battlefield acres on Thursday when the Civil War Preservation Trust says it will transfer a parcel on historic School House Ridge to the federal government. The Trust is the country's largest non-profit dedicated to preserving Civil War battlefields.

The Battle of Harpers Ferry, fought Sept. 12-15, 1862, ended with the Union surrendering more than 12,000 troops to Maj. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Jackson orchestrated the battle from his position on School House Ridge.

The National Park Service has included 11 Civil War sites in its 2009 battlefield protection grants program, according to an announcement late Monday. The program is administered by the American Battlefield Protection Program.

One of the largest grants--$61,833--will be used for underwater archaeological investigation to confirm the identity of a shipwreck believed to be the Water Witch, a federal gunboat captured in a dramatic nighttime raid by Confederates on the Little Ogeechee River, south of Savannah.

Reporter Erin James of the York Daily Record, York, Pa., has written a good piece on the substantial price increase that goes onto effect tomorrow for the museum at the Gettysburg National Military Park. Adult prices will be $10.50 and children under 18 will have to pay $6.50.

I have one quarrel with the story. James says a family visiting the museum will have to pay more to see, "any Civil War-era rifles." An excellent exhibit of rifles in the lobby area is free to anyone who enters the building.

A trench hole digger working on a commercial site in Franklin, Tenn., uncovered the remains of what is believed to be a Union solider. According to historian Eric Jacobson, the man probably did not die in the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864, but rather several weeks later when Union soldiers were pursuing Confederates who were retreating through Franklin following the disastrous Battle of Nashville.

Jacobson, assistant director of historic Carnton Plantation, said nine or 10 Union soldiers were killed on Dec. 17, 1864, at that very spot where the remains were found on May 14 of this year.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island, police are investigating extensive damage to about 90 head stones at historic
Oak Hill Cemetery that occurred sometime Wednesday or Thursday, leaving some stones toppled and others broken. Estimates for repairs exceed $100,000.

Among those damaged are the graves for three Union soldiers: Samuel Preston, Rudolf Carpenter and Joel Crocker. Woonsocket sent more soldiers to the Civil War than any other community in the state, according to one historian. The stones were still marked with small American flags placed in the cemetery for Memorial Day.

It's not too late to attend a Confederate Memorial Day ceremony. The dates for these events are confusing because each locale picks the day meaningful to that community, beginning with Texas in January. This weekend there are two on Saturday, one in Baltimore at 10:30 a.m. and the other in Winchester at 7 p.m. On Sunday there are services at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington Cemetery.

I have attended each of these ceremonies and am always impressed with the passion brought to the effort to memorialize those soldiers who died so long ago that there is no one living to remember the events.

Presidents routinely make political appointments, and most of the time they are little noticed unless your name is Abraham Lincoln and your every decision has been minutely examined in the past century and a half. A letter has just surfaced that he wrote Nov. 14, 1863, regarding the fate of the man he had appointed as chief of the U.S. Mint in San Francisco.

The very short Lincoln letter, stolen decades ago from a bound volume of presidential letters, was returned today during a formal ceremony at the National Archives. Private collector Thomas M. Cutler of Scottsdale, Ariz., who had purchased the letter in the last couple of years, presented it to Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas.

President Obama continued a tradition begun almost a century ago and sent a Memorial Day wreath today to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington Cemetery, ignoring pleas from some historians to "break the chain of racism" by not sending a floral tribute.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) had urged Obama to send a wreath as usual and in a press release sent out Saturday said, "all Confederate Veterans have the status as American Veterans as well," and are due the same honors.

A large portion of an 1863 letter written by President Lincoln missing from government files sometime before the collection of his White House documents was transferred to the National Archives. The missing document will be returned to the Archives on May 28 at a ceremony open only to the press.

An Archives spokeswoman said the donor, a private collector, does not wish to be identified prior to the event. Following the 9:30 a.m. ceremony, which Archives acting-director Adrianne Thomas will attend, high-resolution images of the letter will be available on line. Check back here for more details on the 28th.

Two members of Congress and an actor who played Robert E. Lee in "Gods and Generals" led an attack Monday on Wal-Mart for its plans to build a superstore on Virginia's
Wilderness Battlefield at a press conference hosted by Wilderness Battlefield Coalition.

Standing on the battlefield in front of the recently restored Ellwood Manor and not far from where Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's left arm is buried, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Rep. Pete Welsh (D-Vt.), as well as Robert Duvall, who is a descendant of Lee, accused Wal-Mart of putting profits before patriotism.