William Curtis Neary
First Lieutenant, 4th United States Infantry
Killed In Action At Santiago de Cuba, July 9, 1898

WASHINGTON, May 2, 1899 – The bodies of 252 of the soldier dead brought from the battlefields of Cuba and Puerto Rico by the steamer Crook were interred at Arlington Cemetery today with military honors.

Colonel Guenther of the Fourth Artillery, with two companied of the Fourth and Fifth Artillery from the Washington Barracks and the Fourth Artillery Band, had charge of the funeral.  The religious services were conducted by Chaplain Freeland of Fort Monroe and Father Magee of this city, who performer the burial rites of their respective churches.

The caskets containing the bodies of the six officers, Lieutenant Arthur K. Barnett, Twenty-Third Kansas Volunteer Infantry; Lieutenant Michael J. O’Brien, Fifth United States Infantry; Lieutenant William C. Neary, Fourth United States Infantry; Lieutenant Richard J. Harden, First District of Columbia Infantry, and Captain Gregory Barrett, Tenth United States Infantry, were later removed to the officer’s section of the cemetery and interred there. Among the bodies buried today was that of William J. McLeod, formerly a well-known newspaper man of this city, who was Sergeant Major in the Fifth “Immunes.”

The War Department found it necessary to order that none of the bodied from Cuba buried today should be sent to the soldiers’ homes for interment.  The bodies are thoroughly disinfected and are in metal caskets and may be removed next Winter by relatives.