About 400 people saw history come to life Saturday night during the second annual Shadows of the Past candlelight tour of Vicksburg National Cemetery.

During the tour, visitors met 12 park rangers and volunteers portraying people who are buried in the national cemetery and their family members. Service members from the Civil War — including two Confederate soldiers — through the Korean War are buried in the cemetery, and visitors heard stories spanning nearly a century of warfare but centered around the Siege of Vicksburg.

Of the approximately 20,000 people buried in the park, nearly 17,000 of them are unknown Union soldiers, said tour guide Jim Morris.

“During the Civil War when soldiers died, they were buried near where they died. The markers were made of wood, often from cracker boxes,” Morris said. “That was easily lost through farming, floods, by animals and there were even used for firewood.”

Many of the soldiers buried in the cemetery died from disease during the Civil War rather than combat wounds, Morris said.

“More died of disease than fighting, especially for the U.S. Colored Troops,” Morris said. “Common childhood diseases like measles were deadly for them.”

Next to the thousands of men who fought and died for the Union, two Confederate soldiers are buried in the cemetery.

Ruben H. White, a Confederate soldier from Texas was one of the stories featured on the tour. White, who died at a Union hospital, was originally buried alongside Union troops and was moved with them when they were reinterred in the national cemetery.

The cemetery was open to burial for all veterans until 1961 when the final burial policy was issued. Several people who died in the cemetery were killed in action overseas during World War II and World War II. There is also a veteran of the Mexican-American War from New Orleans who his buried there. The Civil War soldiers whose final resting place is inside the cemetery walls did not all fight in Vicksburg, Morris said.

“They were brought in from Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana,” Morris said.

The free event was part of Veterans Day festivities at the park. Admission is free though Monday.