Daily Richmond Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1865-1869, 1866-04-21
LATEST TELEGRAM TO QUEENSTOWN.
The Horrors Of the Battlefield.


Roger A. Pryor, of the Memphis Argus, has ia
ken ride over the field of Shiloh, and contribute:
many interesting and some horrible facts to that
journal. He says:
1.-THE whole face of the country between COrintl
and Pttsburg and Pittsburg Landing is scared
scratched and wounded with almost ndelible traces
of ruthless war. Lines of earthw0rks and in
trenchments across all the thousand and one roads
lone chimneys, burnt and blackened trees and
heaps of rubbish. where once stood smiling home
steads; whole forests peeled or 'barked' and dead
ened by the encamping soldiery to make themselves
comfortable with bark BEDS dwelling store ant
outhouses in every stage of dapidatiOn and decay
fields fenceess and INTENDED, are rapidly growing
wild again-these are some Of the evidences of the
fierce struggle"
OF the horrors of the field he writes:
1.-THE war, during its progress, presented many
horrible aspects, but none so horrible as this
saw where hundreds of Confederate dead had beer
rooted out of their shallow cOverings-G cannot cal
them graves-their flesh eaten by the hogs, ant
their bones lying scattered and broken and tram
pied upon in every direction. It transcends any
thing recorded in civilized history it almost tran
sends belief. | was told by some of the people re
siding near that the hogs fed so long in this way
upon human carrion that the pork became so often
sive it could not be eaten; and to this day. some o.
the ladies informed me, they dare not touch any
hogs meat killed in that vicinity; they felt OIL
were afraid they would be guilty of cannibalism tC
do SOL
'In one place, about three hundred yards south o
the church. on the Rhea place, saw where large
number (supposed to be hundred, at lease, o
Confederates had been tumbled into gully, and Gov
cred mp with thin layer of dirt. The washing rain;
and the hogs together have exposed the bones here
most sadly. Many of the bones are broken an(
shattered to pieces, evidently since they were un
earthed.
IAN the other scattered graves ofthe 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 bu
one place did see a Confederate grave that had no
been rooted up by the hogs That was on the eX
IRENE left, where, as Mr. Hargroves informed me
there are near three hundred of each side buried il
parallel trenches. Generally, the Federal dead, rs
COrinth, were buried at the proper depth, and gen
orally with head and foot-bOards inscribed with the
names companies, regiments, dc. Many of thes'
head and foot boards however, have been destroyed
or defaced by the annual fires which burn of the gras
and leaves of those woods. | saw but one Fedora
burial trench where the hogs had upturned the bones
and that was but slightly They are generally burie,
too deep for that, and in some places their grave
are enclosed with fences made of logs or rails.
AT the Confederate gully.grave, and at all tn
Confederate graves, rather places where the Con
federate dead were slightly covered up on the grounC
where they fell skulls, thigh, hip and leg bones, ribs
vertebre, &C., &C., lie scattered around in all direc
tons. In one place saw where two Confederate
had been covered up in the middle of the road il
another where one had been pitched into deep rut
or hole made by wagon wheels Mt the roadside, and
SO covered. In still another, | saw where two Con
fcderates had been placed between two standing
trees and then covered up; and in still other places
they were thrown by the side of logs las at Corinth)
and only half covered up. In all these places the
bones were more or less exposed.