Rouviere Media

The U.S. Army, after spending a year trying to account for every grave at Arlington national Cemetery, says there may be problems with documentation on nearly 65,000 burial sites. That is a quarter of the graves at the United States' most prominent military cemetery.

However, many of the goofs may be as minor as typos in old records. The project has been plagued by missing Civil War logs, illegible headstones and changes in burial procedures over the 150 years that the cemetery has been in existence.

The study has found no people buried in the wrong spots. The accounting was mandated by Congress following an Army investigation that found many mismarked or unmarked graves, urns dumped on a dirt pile and millions of wasted dollars on contracts.

A mass grave holding eight sets of cremated remains has been found and has prompted a criminal investigation. As a result of the discoveries, officials in charge of the cemetery have been replaced. Their successors are now trying to document every grave by doublechecking burial markers against more than 500,000 paper records that have been scanned into a database. A third of the sites have some discrepancies in the records. It will take six months for the cemetery to get through those cases. About 195,000 sites have no problems.

If you need money, re-enact a fundraiser

The Waynesboro Heritage Foundation in Waynesboro, Virginia, reenacted a Civil War fundraising dinner last week to raise money for a Civil War battle reenactment. That kind of time machine tinkering can blow your mind. 

Those who bought tickets for the fundraiser last week ate by candlelight as a music troupe played Civil War-era music.Reenactors waited on tables for the guests. They served barbecued pork, carrots, mashed potatoes, corn, corn pudding and apple pie, similar to what they would have eaten at Christmas 1861. 

The foundation has traditionally held the March 2, 1865 "Battle of Waynesborough." However, the reenactment lost money this year because of poor weather, so the organization will host a living history for the anniversary with no battle next year. 

This is the Foundation's first re-enactment dinner, and demand for the $15 tickets was greater than expected, so they may hold it for two nights next year.