Existing comment:
Dealing With Death:
"The thought of laying those men in the ground far, far from home was more than could be borne."
-- John Wilkens, 33rd Indiana Infantry
They Knew The Enemy:
Union soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Tennessee Infantry, who arrived after the battle and helped bury Confederate dead, knew many by name.
"The found among the dead many acquaintances, neighbors, cousins, brothers and in one case a father."
-- Correspondent for the Boston Courier
Confederate troops, passing the body of a Union soldier, identified him as a shoemaker from Bledsoe County, Tennessee named Merriman. After the war, one soldier wrote, "Of all who saw him and are yet living, I suppose not one has forgotten him."
Different Burials:
The Union held military funerals for its dead. Tributes were paid and music played.
Confederate dead were buried without ceremony near where they fell. Nearly ten years later, citizens of Crab Orchard, Kentucky returned to the battlefield and gathered the remains that could be found. After a solemn ceremony they were buried in the Crab Orchard Cemetery. |