The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

A love story for the men and women of our Armed Forces.

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from Tom Cotton’s new book, Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National Cemetery.

The story of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier begins on the battlefields of Europe as the guns fell silent on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The American Expeditionary Forces had proved decisive in World War I, the Great War that would shape so much of the coming century. But despite its late entry, the AEF lost more than 116,000 troops. Thanks in part to the recent introduction of identification tags, though, fewer than two thousand remained unidentified. Thus, for the first time the nation faced the question of how to handle large numbers of identified remains in an overseas war.

Senior Army leaders generally preferred not to disturb the dead, but war mothers and war widows wanted their late sons and husbands returned home. Not surprisingly, Congress sided with them and most Gold Star Families brought their loved ones home, though nearly 31,000 Americans remained in Europe in eight newly established cemeteries, where they still rest today under the care of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

This policy left unsettled the question of what to do with the unidentified remains. Some advocated for a memorial to an unknown soldier who would represent all the unknown fallen, but some Army leaders resisted such proposals. On Armistice Day 1920, however, France and Great Britain buried an unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe and Westminster Abbey in elaborate funerals before vast crowds. The pageantry and emotion of the day galvanized American public opinion. General John Pershing, who had led the AEF, testified to Congress in favor of a memorial for an unknown soldier, as did other senior military officers. Congress quickly passed legislation to honor an unknown at Arlington and President Woodrow Wilson signed it on his final day in office.