Visitors to this battlefield park can actually board the Cairo and relive an historical Civil War moment backwards in time. While visiting Vicksburg, be sure to stop by the cemetery where 16,000 Civil War soldiers rest. Of these, only 3,896 identities are known. Nationwide, the 79 Civil War cemeteries contain only 46 per cent of identifiable remains of Civil War soldiers and sailors. The Quartermaster corps of the Union army only recorded 116,148 burials between 1861- 1865.
Southern records are woefully inaccurate or nonexistent.
In 1913, at a 50 year reunion, veteran, Jacob Heater , 31st Virginia, made a special trip back to Gettysburg to find a little girl. At the reunion, he sadly recalled the little girl sitting on her front porch playing with her doll and cheerfully whistling while his unit was carrying away dead soldiers from a nearby orchard. All of the veterans nodded in agreement. But, Lee never wavered one bit in support of his chief general. Ambrose P. Hill was a general who had proven himself many times on the field of battle.