Find out how soldiers killed in battle were buried and commemorated during and after the American Civil War
Find out how soldiers killed in battle were buried and commemorated during and after the American Civil War
Overview of how those killed in engagements such as the Battle of Gettysburg were buried and commemorated during and after the American Civil War.
© Civil War Trust (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
The big question after every Civil War battle-- what to do with the dead? Here at Gettysburg, 7,000 slain soldiers. A town of 2,500 civilians. Civilians who were inundated with having to care with more than 20,000 wounded soldiers.
Now after every Civil War battle, the victor was responsible to take care of the dead. Here at Gettysburg, Confederate army fleeing toward Virginia. A Union army in pursuit. A Union army that did not have the time to be able to properly care for these dead, to give them what men on both sides referred to as a good death.
The pits around me at the base of Culp's Hill, they were constructed in a hasty way. They were about three feet deep, six feet wide, blankets tossed over the soldiers. To get to that central location, the burial details usually took a rope, tied it around the legs of the corpse, and then they dragged those bodies to that central location.
Now because this was done with such haste, just a little bit of dirt thrown over the graves, rain, wind, erosion-- wild hogs running about would root into these graves, expose the bodies. It was truly a horrifying scene. Soldiers on both sides recognized this. They realized that when they left their dead comrades, that they, in fact, would not get that decent burial. It played upon them in great ways.
Now Abraham Lincoln, he came here on November 19th of 1863, and he, of course, wanted Americans to draw inspiration from this loss of life. He spoke of a new birth of freedom. But for the men on the ground, both Union and Confederate, they didn't see the future with such clarity.
Their memories were of these pits around us, not just here at Gettysburg, but at other Civil War battlefields. It tried them. It played upon their emotions. And it reminded them that this war was a confusing mess, and that to find deeper meaning in it was extraordinarily difficult, as they always were haunted by the memories of leaving their comrades behind.
When we visit Civil War battlefields, we see them as commemorative spaces, often forgetting that all Civil War battlefields are cemeteries, and they're cemeteries today. The process of removing the dead was a gradual and, one might add, an unfinished one. Union armies began that process of removing their dead to national cemeteries during the war and immediately after the war. But for the Confederate dead, such as the men that were buried around me here at Culp's Hill, they remained in the ground for a number of years, well into the 1870s.
They were removed, of course, not to national cemeteries, but to Confederate cemeteries below the Mason-Dixon line. That process of removing the dead around me here at Culp's Hill and at other Civil War battlefields, was an extraordinarily controversial and political one. We come to battlefields today and we pay homage to the sacrifices that men on both sides made for their respective causes. We should, of course, not forget that.
But what we should also not forget is that these cemeteries around us today on this battlefield, these burial trenches, they are not just hollowed ground, they were political grounds. Political grounds in the post-war period in which Northerners and Southerners waged fierce debates about how their dead were either properly or not properly taken care of.
Now after every Civil War battle, the victor was responsible to take care of the dead. Here at Gettysburg, Confederate army fleeing toward Virginia. A Union army in pursuit. A Union army that did not have the time to be able to properly care for these dead, to give them what men on both sides referred to as a good death.
The pits around me at the base of Culp's Hill, they were constructed in a hasty way. They were about three feet deep, six feet wide, blankets tossed over the soldiers. To get to that central location, the burial details usually took a rope, tied it around the legs of the corpse, and then they dragged those bodies to that central location.
Now because this was done with such haste, just a little bit of dirt thrown over the graves, rain, wind, erosion-- wild hogs running about would root into these graves, expose the bodies. It was truly a horrifying scene. Soldiers on both sides recognized this. They realized that when they left their dead comrades, that they, in fact, would not get that decent burial. It played upon them in great ways.
Now Abraham Lincoln, he came here on November 19th of 1863, and he, of course, wanted Americans to draw inspiration from this loss of life. He spoke of a new birth of freedom. But for the men on the ground, both Union and Confederate, they didn't see the future with such clarity.
Their memories were of these pits around us, not just here at Gettysburg, but at other Civil War battlefields. It tried them. It played upon their emotions. And it reminded them that this war was a confusing mess, and that to find deeper meaning in it was extraordinarily difficult, as they always were haunted by the memories of leaving their comrades behind.
When we visit Civil War battlefields, we see them as commemorative spaces, often forgetting that all Civil War battlefields are cemeteries, and they're cemeteries today. The process of removing the dead was a gradual and, one might add, an unfinished one. Union armies began that process of removing their dead to national cemeteries during the war and immediately after the war. But for the Confederate dead, such as the men that were buried around me here at Culp's Hill, they remained in the ground for a number of years, well into the 1870s.
They were removed, of course, not to national cemeteries, but to Confederate cemeteries below the Mason-Dixon line. That process of removing the dead around me here at Culp's Hill and at other Civil War battlefields, was an extraordinarily controversial and political one. We come to battlefields today and we pay homage to the sacrifices that men on both sides made for their respective causes. We should, of course, not forget that.
But what we should also not forget is that these cemeteries around us today on this battlefield, these burial trenches, they are not just hollowed ground, they were political grounds. Political grounds in the post-war period in which Northerners and Southerners waged fierce debates about how their dead were either properly or not properly taken care of.