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William Henry Christman

Union Army soldier; first soldier burial at Arlington National Cemetery (1844–1864)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 12, 2025
Entity authorityQ8011931 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Henry Christman (October 1, 1844 – May 11, 1864) was a private in the United States Army who was the first soldier buried at Arlington National Cemetery during the U.S. Civil War. Christman was a laborer from Pocono Lake, Pennsylvania. He joined Company G of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment on March 25, 1864. On May 1, he was hospitalized with the measles at Lincoln General Hospital. Private Christman died on May 11, 1864 of peritonitis and was buried two days later on May 13, 1864. He was the first Union soldier to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on May 13, 1864. His remains rest in Arlington National Cemetery's Section 27, grave 19.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Henry Christman” is union Army soldier; first soldier burial at Arlington National Cemetery (1844–1864). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Henry and Christman, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1844, 1864—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1843-10-01, 1844-10-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, William, Henry and Christman is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “union Army soldier; first soldier burial at Arlington National Cemetery (1844–1864)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q8011931. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1844 and 1864.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Henry Christman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Henry Christman primary sources, William Henry Christman archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Henry Christman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.