One of the greatest challenges after a battle or war is burying the soldiers who lost their lives.<\/p>\n
Sometimes this process isn't as thorough as it should be, and confusion can arise. This is the case of Captain Abraham Robinson Johnston of the United States Army<\/strong>, the son of a family of Irish origin, a member of the 1st Dragoon Regiment (now the 1st Cavalry Regiment) who fought in the Battle of San Pascual on December 6, 1846, during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Captain Johnston was the first to fall in that battle, dying from a gunshot to the head.<\/strong><\/p>\n After the battle, the fallen were initially buried at a place called San Pasqual, located in what was then Alta California<\/strong>, part of Mexico, and is now part of San Diego County, California. However, 16 months after the battle, after the war concluded, the remains of the fallen were brought to San Diego<\/strong>. Captain Johnston's father fought for three years to have his son's remains moved to the family cemetery in Piqua, Ohio. When he succeeded, he had a stone marker placed marking the location of his son's grave<\/strong>. That stone marker still stands today.<\/p>\n But the story doesn't end there. In late December 1852, a box containing a man's corpse was found<\/strong> in the basement of a stove shop in San Francisco. It was eventually confirmed that the dead man was an officer who had fallen at the Battle of San Pasqual<\/strong>. Apparently, while the U.S. Army Quartermaster in San Diego was processing Captain Johnston's coffin, a fire broke out, affecting the coffin and three boxes containing stoves. Presumably, because the boxes were damaged, it was a stove box that was sent to Piqua<\/strong>. In 1970, researchers passed a metal detector over Captain Johnston's grave and the needle went crazy.<\/p>\n Everything indicates that Captain Johnston's family was never aware of the mix-up. But what happened to his coffin?<\/strong> In a video published today, Sidetrack Adventures<\/a> tours the site of that battle and in California and the aforementioned cemetery in Piqua, asking what the final destination of that coffin could have been:<\/p>\n
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