SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. — Stephen Siemsen has been researching Grand Army of the Republic veterans for 30 years and has never found as many as he did in Cochise County recently.

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) is a Union veterans organization founded in 1866, and the American Legion and VFW are patterned after them.

Siemsen, while visiting Tombstone, asked a local merchant how to get to the cemetery. Expecting to be sent to Boot Hill, he was sent to the Tombstone City Cemetery. Once at the cemetery, Siemsen realized there was a GAR plot but only a couple of markers on the graves.

Siemsen quickly began doing research and found the layout of the plots as well as who was buried there. Finding information on the GAR lot was not easy for Siemsen.

"Tombstone is interesting. Some of the stuff they had go on in town they have a ton of information on. They can tell me how many seconds between shots at the O.K. Corral, but no one knew anything about the Burnside Post or the Grand Army plot," said Siemsen.

Siemsen began working on the plot and cleared all the brush from the area so he could begin installing markers for each of the graves. Many of the graves have been marked but have no name to coincide with the marker.

"I have 18 names and 18 graves, but I can't say who is buried where because the only plot map I have is from 1905. I'm hoping someone will pop up with a more recent map," said Siemsen.

Samuel Bastian, a boy scout working on his eagle project, decided to help Siemsen with the plot, outlined each grave with rocks and helped to make the plot more easily recognizable as well as beautify the area.

The tireless efforts of Siemsen has made him want to find more information about veterans of the Civil War that died in the area, and he has currently found over 200 in the area. Many more of the local veterans will never have a grave in Tombstone because they were shipped out long ago.

"A lot of times when veterans would get old and they were single or widowed, people would take up a collection and put them on a train and send them to Sawtelle Veterans Home in Los Angeles. There are about 40 Tombstone pioneers that are buried in the Los Angeles National Cemetery that lived in Tombstone their whole lives and when they got old they were sent off," said Siemsen.

By researching and identifying the men that lie in the graves at Tombstone City Cemetery, Siemsen is allowing the men to get the respect they deserve and finally be recognized.

"Our country said that a veteran's service and sacrifice would never be forgotten, and some of these men here have been laying here for 125 years because someone didn't fill out some paperwork. One in four graves are not marked," said Siemsen.

Today, Siemsen is one of the few people that are involved with Union veterans associations in Arizona. There are far more Confederate organizations than Union, and Siemsen is doing what he can to draw attention to the need to identify and honor the soldiers of the Civil War.

"There is just not a lot of us Sons of Union Veterans around, but I'm doing what I can to identify and honor those buried here," said Siemsen.

"I went to a reenactment once, and the Union guys were outnumbered 7 to 1 by Confederate guys. One of them asked me, 'What's the matter with you Yankees? Don't you have any pride?' I told them we don't have to come to an event like this to see our flag. We just have to go to the post office," said Siemsen.

Siemsen continues to work diligently in identifying and supplying markers for the veterans of the Grand Army Republic and will do what he can to find as many veterans as possible.

On Memorial Day Siemsen and a small group will be dedicating a plaque at the Tombstone City Cemetery with the names of the men buried in the unmarked graves. They will also be doing a walk down in Tombstone in honor of the veterans for Memorial Day and ask that anyone interested in joining be a relative of a veteran of the Civil War and be dressed in period appropriate uniforms.