According to Ambrose, Lowe enlisted July 24, 1861. The following January, he was marching from Winchester, Va., to what is now Romney, W.Va., with fellow Georgians in Company H, 1st Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The unit was attached to Confederate Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson's 8,500-man expedition headed to Romney. Jackson believed Romney had some sort of strategic importance, Ambrose said.
A detachment of 2,000 Union troops in Berkeley Springs stood in his way. Jackson's plan to surround and capture the Yankees failed, and they escaped across the Potomac River to Hancock, Ambrose said.
Some soldiers on both sides were killed during skirmishes around Berkeley Springs in the first week of January.
"We don't know if Lowe was in the fighting, if he was wounded or if he got pneumonia from the 36-mile walk from Winchester in the cold," Ambrose told a gathering of nearly 30 people at the memorial service. "I've exhausted the research."
"We only know that he was left at the tavern in the care of an old woman named Shockey," Ambrose said.
Lowe was buried in the Shockey family's plot in the Methodist church graveyard. A sandstone marker was placed on his grave.
The building housing the tavern still stands today.
Several oak trees, said by locals to be more than 200 years old, were growing in the cemetery the day Lowe was interred.
None of the markers in the oldest part of the cemetery had gravestones older than the 1850s.
Ambrose said he sent copies of his research on Lowe to a Sons of Confederate Veterans group in Georgia to see if they had more information, but he has not received a response.
Saturday's memorial service and gravestone unveiling were performed by the 5th Regiment Virginia Volunteer Infantry Co. K of Berkeley Springs. Members made up the color and honor guards. The honor guard fired a 21-gun salute over Lowe's new marker.
Members of the Berkeley Border Guards Camp 199 Sons of Confederate Veterans in Martinsburg, W.Va., also participated in the ceremony. Ambrose belongs to both groups.
Ambrose said no one was exactly sure where Lowe lies beneath the ground.
"We may not be right over it, but we're pretty close," he said.
The marble gravestone, engraved with Lowe's name and unit, was supplied by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs through a request by Ambrose.
Those attending sang "God Bless America" and "Dixie" a cappella in honor of the occasion. A pledge was made to the American flag and a salute made to the Confederate flag.
