Nicolae Dunca was born in 1837, in Transylvania, Romania, and came to the United States in December 1861. He enlisted in the Union Army in March 1862 and, due to his past military experience, was appointed captain of the 12th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Volunteers from New York. He was later assigned as aide-de-camp to Major General John C. Fremont

John C. Frémont

John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...

, whose army was operating in the Shenandoah Valley

Shenandoah Valley

The Shenandoah Valley is both a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians , to the north by the Potomac River...

. Dunca was shot and killed by a Georgian (Pvt. John Long of Co. B, 21st Georgia Infantry) on picket duty at the Battle of Cross Keys

Battle of Cross Keys

The Battle of Cross Keys was fought on June 8, 1862, in Rockingham County, Virginia, as part of Confederate Army Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's campaign through the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War...

 on June 8, 1862. When the picket searched Dunca's personal effects, it was discovered that he was carrying a dispatch outlining Gen. Fremont's order of march for the day. Dunca was still a Romanian citizen at the time of his death. He was buried at Perkey’s Farm, Cross Keys, Virginia, and his remains were later transferred to the Staunton National Cemetery

Staunton National Cemetery

Staunton National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located in the Shenandoah Valley, in Staunton, Virginia It encompasses a just over a single acre, and as of the end of 2005 had 994 interments...

(Section B, Grave 292).