The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-04-27

afraid that they wouM be guilty of
cannibahsm to dose
| In one place, about 800 yards
! South Of the church, ON the Rlea
place, I saw where large number
| (srlpposed to be 150, at least,t of
Confederates had been tnmuled into
q gully and covered up with u thin
layer of dirt, and this they called
burial! The washing rains, and the.
! hogs together, have exposed the
bones here most sadly. Many of the
| bones are broken and shattered to
pieces, evidently since they were un-
earthed; but whether done by brute
or human. hogs could not be de
termined. Active, fiery war in pro
gress, has no such sad and horrible
picture rs this. 1t was enough, If
seen by all the world, to steel all
hearts against war forever, and insure
perpetual peace. For, who would
ever think of going into battle if they
could suppose for one moment that
their friends and brethren would
leave their mortal remains, their
names and memories, to such awful
neglect as this?
All the other scattered graves of
the Confederates, where they were
covered up by ones, twos, threes,
and so on, up to dozens in place,
over the whole field, are in the same
miserable condition. In but one
place did I see q Confederate grave
that had not been rooted up by the
hogs. That was on the extreme left
where, as Mr.. Hargroves informed
me, there ere near 800 Of each side
buried III parallel trenches. Gene
rally, the Federal dead, as at Corinth,
were buried at the proper depth, and
generally with head and foot boards,
inscribed with the names, companies,
regiments, &c. Many of these head
and foot-boards, however, have been
destroyed or defaced by the annual
fires which burn off the grass and
leaves of those woods. saw but
one Federal burial trench where the
hogs had upturncd the bones, and
that was but slightly. They are
generally buried too deep for that,
and in some places their graves arc
enclosed with fences made of logs or
rails
At the Confederate gully grave,
and ut all the Confederate graves
or, rather, places where the Confede-
rate dead were slightly covered up on
the ground where they fell-skulls,
thigh, hip and leg bones, ribs, ver-
tebr9, ETC., etc, lie scattered around
in all directions. In one place,
saw where two Confederates had been
convered up i'll the middle of the
wood ~, onnfhor x,.1,o o,,o 1>o11 l,oo,,
pitched into deep rut, or hole,
made by wagon wheels at the road
side, and SO covered. In still another,
/ saw where two Confedcrates had
been placed between two standing
trees, and then covered up. And in
still other places, they were thrown
by the side of logs (as at Corinth)
and only half covered up. In all
these places the bones wero more or
less exposed. Generally, the skulls
had rolled off to few feet; but in
many places they had disappeared
altogether, leaving one TO the horri-
bic suspicion that they had been car
ried off to be made into drinking
cups, or sold to some anatomical
museum! y little boy, living in the
IClSl1Do1liOoi, says ilc SilW II L ctteIHl
soldier, n short time ago, take the
teeth from one Of the skulls at the
gully grave and pat them in his
pocket to carry home-as trophies,
| suppose.
Mr. Hargroves relates the following
incident: The party engaged in bury
ing the dead ON the road side, not far
from the church, Il few days after the
battle, covered up t>vo Confelcrates
few feet from the road, each with
one hand sticking out above the
ground. They then wrote something
on two slips of paper about "rishts
in the Territories, and placed one
between the stitfcned fingers of each
of the outstrctched hands. TO COM
pleto the mournful, but not very
magnanimous, picture of what they
doubtless regarded as just and
witty retribution, they wrote on q
board, eve have got our rights in the
Territories ut last" and stuck it in
the ground between them, so that it
could be read by all passers-by. What
do you think Of that9 TO my mind
it is but another evidence of the ter
rible heartlessness and cruelty which
war III lays engenders. "Man's inhu-
manity to man. was Il proverb long
before Milton meditated his song sub
lime
pox,>,l o,l I.4l :1I = 4,