The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1866-05-25
The Lingering Horrors OF The
Battle Field.


Roger A. Pryor. of the Memphis
ArgUS, has taken ride over the bat
tle-feld OF Shiloh, and contributes
many interesting and some horrible
facts to that Journal:
"The whole face Of the country be-
tween Corinth Il. d Pittsburgh Lind
ing is scared, scratched and wounded
with IL nos. ildehl ! 3 II faces # ruthless
war. Lines Of earthwOrks and in
trcnchments across all the thousand
and one ronds; lone chlmnoys, burnt
and blackened trees and heaps Of rub
bish, where once stood smiling home
steads whole forests peeled or
"barked," and deadened 10y the en-
camping soldiery, TO make themselves
comfortable with bark beds; dwellings,
stores and outhouscs in every stage Of
dllapidation and decay; fields, fence
less and INTENDED, arc rapidly grow
ing wild again--these are some OF the
evidences of the fierce struggle
The war during its progress presen-
ted many horrible aspects, but none 50
horrible as this saw where hmm
dreds of Confederate dead had been
rooted out Of their shallow coverings
! cannot call them graves their flesh
eaten by the hogs, and their bones "
ing scattered and broken and tram
pied upon in every direction 1t
trauscend5 anything recorded in civil
lied history; It almost transcends be
lief | was told 10y some of the people
residing near that the hogs fed so
long in this way, upon human carr ion,
that the pork became SO offensive it
could not be eaten; and TO this day,
some of the indies informed me, they
dare not touchany hog meat killed in
that vicinity; they felt or were afraid
ih.t they would be guilty OF cannibal-
ism to DO so.
In one place, about 800 yards sonth
of the church, on the Rhea pl ce, /
saw where large number (supposed
to be 100 at least OF Confederates had
been tumbled into gully and covered
up with Il thin layer of dirt The
washing rains aud the hogs, together,
have exposed the bones here most sad
~. Many Of the bones arc broken
and shattered to pieces, evidently since
they were unearthed. 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 / see a Confederate
grave that had not been rooted up by
the hogs That was on the extreme
left, where as Mr.. Hargroves informed
me, there are nearly 800 of each side
buried in parallel trenches.
Generally, the Federal dead, rs at
I Corlnth, were buried at the proper
depth. and generally with head and
foot boards, inscribed with 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
aud leaves of those woods | saw but
one Federal trench where the hogs
had upturned the bones, and that but
slightly They are generally buried
too deep for that, and III some places
their graves arc enclosed with fences
made of logs or rails
At the Confederate gully grave, and
at all the Confederate q aves--or rath-
er, places where the Confederate dead
were slightly covered up on the ground
where they fell, skulls, thigh, hap and
leg bones, ribs, vertebrae, etc, etc, lie
scattered around in all directions. In
one place, l saw where two Confeder-
ates had been red up in the middle
of the road; in another, where one had
been pitched into a deep rut or hole,
made by wagon wheels at the roadside,
and SO covered In still another, !
saw where two Confederates had been
placed between standing trees, and
then covered up. And in still Other
places, they were thrown by the side
of logs las at Corinth) and only hall
covered up. In all these places the
bones We're more or less exposed.