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A recently retired Air Force major and aerospace engineer from Manassas is bringing to life the varied stories of veterans who rest amid the rolling hills of historic Culpeper National Cemetery. Jeff Joyce, son of an Air Force pilot, since 2022 has researched and written around 125 profiles of the men and women fighting forces buried in the hallowed grounds. His vignettes are posted weekly on Facebook–Wreaths Across America Culpeper National Cemetery.
The fascinating, interesting and sometimes tragic biographies, of varying lengths, with photos if available, are also shared with Veterans Legacy Memorial, an online Veterans Administration program honoring veterans’ lives. Joyce got into developing the profiles through his volunteer work with Wreaths Across America, at Arlington National Cemetery and then Culpeper National Cemetery, located off of U.S.
Avenue. It’s about as close as Arlington, but easier to get to and smaller. People are also reading.
.. Joyce feels like he can make more of an impact and he often makes personal connections with the families of more recent veterans buried in Culpeper.
In his research, he has uncovered tales of valor and excellence as well as struggle and loss. Joyce uses sites like ancestry.com , newspaper.
com and Find A Grave to compile his research that also includes phone calls and messages with family to get approvals and information for the profiles. He’s come across family rifts, lost sons and daughters, heroism and heartbreak in his endeavor to publish histories of Culpeper National Cemetery inhabitants. Joyce did a presentation in May on his notable finds, “Stories Beneath the Stones,” for the Museum of Culpeper History and is developing a cemetery walking tour of the same name for around Memorial Day with the museum.
Joyce finds new subjects strolling the cemetery once a month, snapping photos of headstones that catch his eye for his next vignette. “I will walk back and forth and look for any markers that stand out because of the name, the service, particularly if they have a PH, SS, BS—Purple Heart, Silver Star, Bronze Star—or if I know it’s a combat veteran,” he said in an Oct. 8 meeting at the burial ground.
Born in Texas while his dad was going through pilot training in the early ’60s, Joyce was an Air Force brat whose father was a career officer who served a year in Vietnam. His younger brother was in the Army. Joyce served 1983 to 2003 and then did another 20 years as a defense contractor in Northern Virginia responsible for military satellites.
He retired last summer and was looking for something else to do besides yard work. “I have always had a love of history, particularly military history and also my aunt, my late father’s sister, is a professional genealogist, so I got the bug from her to walk cemeteries and learn about the history of these individuals that are buried here,” Joyce said. He is a Civil War reenactor with the 7th Maryland Volunteer Infantry, a unit that spent time in Culpeper during the famed winter encampment.
“A half dozen members of that unit died of disease and were buried in Culpeper so I kind of started researching them and expanded that to be profiles for veterans anywhere from the Civil War to the modern era, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Joyce said. Wreaths Across America likes to remind people when they come to visit a cemetery to stop, place a wreath on the grave, and then take a moment to read the name, he said. People die twice, Joyce said.
“When you die physically and then you die when no one remembers your name. What I’m trying to do is help people remember these individuals, many have been resting here for decades,” he said. “It’s kind of a way to just remember like I would hope to be remembered myself if and when my time comes.
” Walking through the cemetery with him one hears stories right from the pages of history. Joyce stopped at the gravesites of some of his profile subjects, like Staunton M. Brown.
“He’s from Virginia, look at the date, June 6, 1944, D-Day, he was killed on the beach at Omaha Beach as part of the second wave of soldiers going ashore on D-Day.” Another, Union Col. Gurden Chapin, was born in Virginia and was attending West Point when the Civil War broke out.
Chapin fought for the north, Joyce said, as far away as New Mexico. “His younger brother enlisted in the Confederate Army and was killed in action in late 1863. So here’s an example of an actual family that was divided by the Civil War,” Joyce said.
“It’s not clear if he ever reconciled with his family, but he moved back here to Culpeper, with his wife, Julia, maybe to be back in Virginia.” Another individual profiled, Michael Edward Stuart, was a Marine Corps lance corporal killed in Vietnam in 1967 at the age of 19. Stuart attended high school in Culpeper before enlisting.
“A year later he was killed in action, a firefight. He was trying to rescue some of his fellow Marines when he was injured and was awarded the Navy Cross, the second highest award for valor,” Joyce said. 1st Lieutenant D.
J. V. Martin with the South Carolina Palmetto Sharpshooters is the only known Confederate buried in Culpeper National Cemetery.
Joyce believes he was mistakenly buried there. “He was mortally wounded at 2nd Battle of Manassas, buried out there near a field hospital and for some unknown reason he was probably misidentified as Union and it’s possible that he might have been wearing a Union uniform.” A recent profile subject, 1st Lieutenant Michael Lawless, was born in Ireland and immigrated with his sister to New York City in February 1849, at the height of the deadly Irish Potato Famine.
Lawless joined the Army and later served in the Civil War. “On June 11, 1864, during the opening phase of the Battle of Trevilian Station, Michael was killed leading a charge by Company A ..
. In his report on the battle, Union Brigadier General Wesley Merritt wrote that Michael ‘was a fearless, honest and eminently trustworthy soldier, ‘God’s truth’ being the standard by which he measured all his actions.’” Another recent profile was Vietnam veteran Chestly Williams.
“Probably a draftee, got the Purple Heart, was wounded,” Joyce said. “Sad story he was actually murdered on the street corner in Richmond, stabbed and died.” Joyce picked him to profile because he was a Vietnam veteran and a Purple Heart recipient.
Williams’ unit was an ammunition company in South Vietnam attacked by the Vietcong a number of times, said Joyce. “Several soldiers were killed and injured so it’s likely he was injured in one of those attacks on that ammunition depot. I have to make some assumptions.
” Joyce walked over to the memorial section at the cemetery housing veterans whose bodies were never recovered. He’s done a couple profiles of some of those people, including a Civil War private, Patrick Reagan, originally from Ireland who fought for the Union, taken prisoner and died at sea. Another was a WWII fighter pilot with the 79th whose plane disappeared after the war off the coast of Virginia on a training mission.
He was never recovered. Joyce has been in touch with his son in developing the story. Joyce has also done profiles through Missing in America Project, a group that buries unclaimed veterans’ remains from funeral homes, including at Culpeper National Cemetery.
He did a profile on local longtime firefighter, Army Corporal Jeremiah Peyton “Dickie” Atkins III, of Culpeper. “It meant the world to our family that Jeff chose Dad,” said his daughter Kim Atkins, a Wreaths Across America Culpeper organizer. “Jeff is a great person and a friend to me as well.
I think it’s amazing that he does this for veterans and their families.” Along the way, Joyce has also worked with local VA leaders to correct misspellings he’s discovered on headstones. “There have been several corrections made since I have been here to veterans’ profiles and headstones,” said Culpeper National Cemetery Director Lynette Parker, in a phone call.
“Our historians respond to him as soon as he has documents, and they quickly agree on the change. It’s really pretty cool because he can get things done a lot faster than we normally do because of his supporting documents. He is able to dig a lot deeper than we do and is able to come up with more accurate information.
” Information gets updated through the Veterans Legacy Memorial and a few new headstones have been ordered and replaced, with the corrected information, she said. Parker said she sees Joyce in the cemetery from time to time collecting his names. “He will stop in the office to see how we are doing and sometimes I get inquiries from families trying to do research, to look back into their history,” the cemetery director said.
“If I can’t give them enough information, I will take their name and number—we have a resource—reach out to Jeff, see if he can help, he’s been successful.” Parker said she was going to attach the profiles he’s developed on “the back end” of veterans’ records through so it’s there in the decades to come for others seeking history. “I love it,” she said of the work Joyce is doing.
“It does cause some extra work, we have to order headstones, but all in all we’re excited about what he does.” Sharon Croushorn and Jennifer Smith, coordinators of Wreaths Across America Culpeper National Cemetery, recalled Joyce approached them a few years ago about doing the profiles. It fit the goal of the effort.
"Wreaths Across America's mission is to never forget our veterans. The profiles Jeff writes each week helps us to get to know the person whose name is on the stone," they said. Wreaths Across America’s mission is to remember the fallen, honor those that serve and their families, and teach the next generation the value of freedom.
"This mission is yearlong, not just on Wreaths Across America Day and carried out by volunteers like Jeff Joyce," said Croushorn and Smith. They said it is an honor to work with Jeff weekly posting his profiles. Joyce has profiled women, African Americans and couples who served together during WWII.
“It’s just such a cross-section of America,” he said. “I love the opportunity to share the stories. It brings the individuals alive again.
” For information about his project, contact [email protected] Be the first to know.
