REPOST For these of you who believe Union Soldiers desecrated southern graves you need to read this and you can read it on line for free. Dark Trophies: Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War By Simon Harrison books.google/books?id=cSbAQzNfWjwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false But in a life time and every book, diary I have never found anyone ever mentioning anything like yall describe. Surely it occurred but I can say without a doubt not on a scale you believe and I think you are mistaking necessity as barbarism. “For those on death’s doorstep, the longing for home was even more pronounced. “The thought of home is ever uppermost in the mind,” admitted one Alabamian, “and a wish exists to be buried with their fathers and the companies of their youth.” Their wish would not be granted. At Pageland, the “Dead March” was so frequently heard that men became inured to it and soon did not even inquire as to who had died or was being buried. The endless deaths produced a “crude shock” among the men of the 15th Alabama and, as anyone might expect, “threw a gloom” over the camp that could not be shaken of”. They are becoming numb to the violence. “As for the sick and dying at Haymarket, Oates could not take his mind off them. Their suffering, as he had said, was unbearable—to them and to their comrades who survived. It is not known precisely how many men the 15th Alabama buried in the fields around St. Paul’s Church, where their remains still lay after all this time. A stone marker near the entrance to the church states flatly, without mention of the dead of the 15th Alabama: “In this area are buried 80 unknown Confederate soldiers who died of wounds after the battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861.” Here they talk of their own mass grave of 80 unknowns”. Glenn W. LaFantasie is the author of Gettysburg Requiem: The Life of William C. Oates (Oxford University Press, 2006). COLD HARBOR, VA., June 7, 1864. 10.30 A.M. GEN. R. E. LEE, Commanding Army of N. Va. I regret that your note of seven P.M. yesterday should have been received at the nearest corps headquarters, to where it was delivered, after the hour which had been given for the removal of the dead and wounded had expired; 10.45 P.M. was the hour at which it was received at corps headquarters, and between eleven and twelve it reached my headquarters. As a consequence, it was not understood by the troops of this army that there was a cessation of hostilities for the purpose of collecting the dead and wounded, and none were collected. Two officers and six men of the 8th and 25th North Carolina Regts., who were out in search of the bodies of officers of their respective regiments, were captured and brought into our lines, owing to this want of understanding. I regret this, but will state that as soon as I learned the fact, I directed that they should not be held as prisoners, but must be returned to their commands. These officers and men having been carelessly brought through our lines to the rear have not determined whether they will be sent back the way they came, or whether they will be sent by some other route. Regretting that all my efforts for alleviating the sufferings of wounded men left upon the battle-field have been rendered nugatory, I remain, &c.. There were but a few cases where a side did not grant a cessation. Point a cessation might be asked and granted for a number of reasons in other words not just to help the wounded; but to allow civilians to leave the area. There are countless stories where a side unintentionally moved a gun battery or unit that would give them an advantage when the battle began again and after it was noticed moved the troops back. (Sometimes the other side would complain and it would result in action correcting the move and an apology). You talk about Grant as he was not the best friend the South had and he was and we needed every friend. If not for Grant Lee, Davis and Pickett would certainly have \been brought up on charges in particular Pickett. REL- We must forgive our enemies; Madam, dont bring up your sons to detest the United States Government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans; Sir, if you ever presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this university . So unless we are only going to pick the advice he gave that we like may-be we should look at why he says what he did! As to treating Confederate dead any differently than we treated yankee dead, youll have to show me and I dont mean I know someone who knew someone who knew.... Unless it was a special case the dead were throw into a shallow hole and dirt barely covering them; in but a few days animals would be at the dead and have to be chased from the pits. Dead we folded up, stuck in any hole that could be found, if slaves or civilians could be pressed into burial detail it was done but besides the Quakers they gave the dead no more respect than the soldiers. Keep in mind burial detail was like KP a duty and a company 100+/ - might be burying three or four thousand and that is not counting animals. How long before you did not see the dead as bodies but work? “Embalmed bodies were placed in long wooden boxes, sometimes lined with zinc. On the lid was written the full name of the deceased and the address of the parents. Inside the box, along with the remains, were placed papers and other personal effects. On the Confederate side, freelance undertakers and embalming surgeons were given safe passage between the lines, thus allowing them to ply their trade in Richmond as well as Washington. Because of the lack of federal regulations governing undertakers, there were several cases of fraud and attempted extortion, so many that in March 1865 the War Department issued General Order Number 39, entitled Order Concerning Embalmers. In part it read: Hereafter no persons will be permitted to embalm or remove the bodies of deceased officers or soldiers, unless acting under the special license of the Provost Marshal of the Army, Department, or District in which the bodies may be. Provost Marshals will restrict disinterments to seasons when they can be made without endangering the health of the troops. Also license will be granted to those who can furnish proof of skill and ability as embalmers, and a scale of prices will be governed. The war ended a month after the order was issued, and it had little effect on embalming services for battlefield casualties. However, the order did represent the first major effort in the United States, and perhaps the world, to attempt to define professional requirements for undertakers and end the chaos of an unregulated work field. It would take the individual states an additional 30 years or more to duplicate the farsighted regulations. In both the Union and Confederate armies, soldiers attempted to provide some kind of burial for fallen comrades who perished during a battle, even if this meant simply covering bodies with dirt, or placing the dead in common graves. The details of burial depended on a variety of circumstances, including which side won a particular battle, and which unit was assigned burial duty. Victors had the luxury of attending to their own dead with more care and attention, if time permitted. On the other hand, the losing side had to retreat from the battlefield, which meant leaving the fate of the dead and wounded to the winning side, who treated them as most enemies are treated, with indifference and disrespect. If the Union forces controlled the field after a fight, for example, the dead were often buried without ceremony somewhere on or near the site, either individually in separate graves or collectively in common graves. In many cases, those assigned to burial duty—often African Americans, who performed a variety of noxious duties for the Union army—left the dead in their uniforms or placed a blanket around them before interment. If such resources as pine coffins or burial containers were available, and time permitted, soldiers would be placed in them before being put in the ground, a procedure that rarely occurred in the early years of the war. Many soldiers on both sides expressed a great deal of fear that their bodies would be left to the enemy, which was understood as a fate worse than death”. deathreference/Ce-Da/Civil-War-U-S.html “The most immediate of death’s challenges was a logistical one, the burial of soldiers in the aftermath of battle. Armies were not ready for the enormity of the task that confronted them, particularly in the aftermath of engagements that left thousands of bodies carpeting battlegrounds like Antietam or Gettysburg. After a single day of fighting at Antietam, for example, 23,000 men and untold numbers of horses and mules lay killed or wounded. Neither sides army had grave registration units; soldiers were not issued official badges of identification, there was no formal policy of notification for the families of the slain, and neither side had an ambulance service. Makeshift crews of soldiers were detailed after battles to dispose of the dead and often found themselves lacking basic necessities such as carts or shovels. These failures of capacity were made evident in the length of time it took to attend to casualties. A week after Antietam, a Union surgeon reported that, “the dead were almost wholly unburied, and the stench arising from it was such as to breed a pestilence.” As a result, bodies were often thrown into unidentified mass trench graves”. Death and Dying By Drew Gilpin Faust nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/death.html Gary.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 00:31:05 +0000
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