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Friday, June 11, 2004 ·
Forgotten Ark. Civil War graves uncovered
By JAY HUGHES
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HELENA, Ark. -- For 138 years, a shallow, unmarked trench held the bodies of six Confederate soldiers cut down in one of the more futile battles of the Civil War. Then, a road building project cut through the ground above them.
The field where the Battle of Helena was fought July 4, 1863, is part of the city now, and as urban sprawl encroaches on battlegrounds nationwide, it becomes more and more likely that additional forgotten graves will be uncovered.
The six men buried in Helena, who remain "Known Only to God," as their headstone now reads, have since been given a more dignified burial site than the one inadvertently unearthed by a bulldozer in 2002.
"They were buried kind of haphazardly. One was facedown, another one was lying on his side and some of their limbs were kind of sprawled out," said John House, an archaeologist from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff who oversaw excavation of the Helena gravesite.
Terry Winschel, a historian at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, said burying the dead on the field was common during the Civil War, an expedient way for armies to deal with large numbers of bodies amid the ebb and flow of campaigning.
"It worries me every time you put a shovel in the ground," said Kathleen Harrison, a National Park Service historian at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.
Often, soldiers were buried where they fell. Over the years, graves not graced with a durable marker blended into the earth.
The tidy rows of graves at Vicksburg, Gettysburg and other park service sites are an illusion of sorts, evoking a sense of order though the wartime reality was chaos.
Around Vicksburg, every nearby Union battlefield grave that could be found was exhumed under an order from Congress. Government workers who contracted diseases by transporting the bodies were buried alongside those they came to honor.
The original superintendent of the project was badly haunted by the task, which required him to visit the numerous sites where bodies were located, often necessitating trips on the river.
"It was sickening, so much so that this guy drank quite heavily and on one of those trips he fell overboard and drowned," Winschel said. "He was just as much a victim of that war as anyone else."
During Reconstruction, southern women's societies collected money to return the Confederate dead from Gettysburg to their native soil.
"It was logistically a nightmare for these people. But they found a way to do it," Harrison said.
Winschel said the Union attempted to identify its dead by marking a soldier's name on a piece of wood after a battlefield burial, but many Southerners pulled up the headstones to use as firewood.
Battlefield graves, when encountered, are no longer quite as disturbing as they once were. Time and nature have done their work, reducing the contents to bones, small metal items and little else. At the Helena gravesite, about two feet deep, the bones were linked to the Civil War because of what was found with the men: an unspent musket cartridge and 25 buttons.
The men buried here in March died in one of the most pointless battles of the war. The Confederates attacked Helena in an attempt to threaten Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's supply line and help relieve the siege of Vicksburg, 230 miles to the south.
A total of 170 Confederates were killed, more than 680 wounded and more than 770 missing. Union losses were about 60 dead, 150 wounded and 40 missing.
Danny Honnoll, president of the Arkansas chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which organized the funeral, said it was an honor to help finally give the soldiers a proper resting place.
"I get the feeling that the spirits of these old soldiers come out of the woodwork when we're doing things like this," he said.
Friday, June 11, 2004 ·
Forgotten Ark. Civil War graves uncovered
By JAY HUGHES
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HELENA, Ark. -- For 138 years, a shallow, unmarked trench held the bodies of six Confederate soldiers cut down in one of the more futile battles of the Civil War. Then, a road building project cut through the ground above them.
The field where the Battle of Helena was fought July 4, 1863, is part of the city now, and as urban sprawl encroaches on battlegrounds nationwide, it becomes more and more likely that additional forgotten graves will be uncovered.
The six men buried in Helena, who remain "Known Only to God," as their headstone now reads, have since been given a more dignified burial site than the one inadvertently unearthed by a bulldozer in 2002.
"They were buried kind of haphazardly. One was facedown, another one was lying on his side and some of their limbs were kind of sprawled out," said John House, an archaeologist from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff who oversaw excavation of the Helena gravesite.
Terry Winschel, a historian at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, said burying the dead on the field was common during the Civil War, an expedient way for armies to deal with large numbers of bodies amid the ebb and flow of campaigning.
"It worries me every time you put a shovel in the ground," said Kathleen Harrison, a National Park Service historian at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.
Often, soldiers were buried where they fell. Over the years, graves not graced with a durable marker blended into the earth.
The tidy rows of graves at Vicksburg, Gettysburg and other park service sites are an illusion of sorts, evoking a sense of order though the wartime reality was chaos.
Around Vicksburg, every nearby Union battlefield grave that could be found was exhumed under an order from Congress. Government workers who contracted diseases by transporting the bodies were buried alongside those they came to honor.
The original superintendent of the project was badly haunted by the task, which required him to visit the numerous sites where bodies were located, often necessitating trips on the river.
"It was sickening, so much so that this guy drank quite heavily and on one of those trips he fell overboard and drowned," Winschel said. "He was just as much a victim of that war as anyone else."
During Reconstruction, southern women's societies collected money to return the Confederate dead from Gettysburg to their native soil.
"It was logistically a nightmare for these people. But they found a way to do it," Harrison said.
Winschel said the Union attempted to identify its dead by marking a soldier's name on a piece of wood after a battlefield burial, but many Southerners pulled up the headstones to use as firewood.
Battlefield graves, when encountered, are no longer quite as disturbing as they once were. Time and nature have done their work, reducing the contents to bones, small metal items and little else. At the Helena gravesite, about two feet deep, the bones were linked to the Civil War because of what was found with the men: an unspent musket cartridge and 25 buttons.
The men buried here in March died in one of the most pointless battles of the war. The Confederates attacked Helena in an attempt to threaten Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's supply line and help relieve the siege of Vicksburg, 230 miles to the south.
A total of 170 Confederates were killed, more than 680 wounded and more than 770 missing. Union losses were about 60 dead, 150 wounded and 40 missing.
Danny Honnoll, president of the Arkansas chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which organized the funeral, said it was an honor to help finally give the soldiers a proper resting place.
"I get the feeling that the spirits of these old soldiers come out of the woodwork when we're doing things like this," he said.