Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1899-01-05
THE BURLINGTON CAMP IN 1912.
Rem niscences of An OctoEenarian, Mr..
white Recalls the Mortality Here in
1SI3-14.

Buffalo, y. Y, December, 1898.
| To the Editor of the Free Press:
AS | have read from day to day the re-
ports of the evidence given before the
commission appointed to enquire as to the
causes of the sickness and deaths of the
soldiers at the different camps and as
to their sanitary condition. have
thought that sickness was inevitable
where the soldiers were gathered into
camp. | have a neishDor who was en-
ployed in telegraph office near Washing
ton, ID. c., during the civil way, who tells
me that a Maine regiment whose soldiers
were from the lumber camps, most of
them six feet in height and in full health,
went into camp near Washington. and
many of them siCkened and died mere. 30
when | think of my native place, Burl-
ington. and the camp there during the
war of 1872 and 1Sli, certainly no camp
could be more favorabiy situated as to
its sanitary conditions. They were seem
ingly perfect as it was on sandy ground
and high above the lake. The barracks as
! remern Der them We're wooden buildings
two stories in height and lathed and pas
tered. Yet there was much sickness
there. They called it camp lever SIM
ply did not cal 1t It! phulu' or 'malarl-
al" in those days. How many of the SOL
diers and officers died do not know, put
when / was young fellow used to PICK
wild Strawberries and huckleberiieS
among the graves in the soldiers
burial ground. Some of the graves were
marked with boards with initial letters
cut into them. The bushes had grown 50
high, even at that time, that the graves
were not very distinct. and the medical
students seemed to think they had ii
right to dig up the bones so as to nave
a skeleton in the closet" at their board
ing house and when they had done WIN
a
think it their duty to give them decent
rcburial but dumped them into the
Academy hollow" where | often saw hu-
man bones when | was catching MN
nows in the brook that ran through the
hollow. / remember that someone IN
formed Mark Rice cabinet and chalrmaker,
that some human bones were lying on
the ground there, and he sent ana had
them buried decently. BY the way | nave
now in my home here in Buffalo rock
ing chair made by Rice for my mother and
/ can remember being rocked by her IN
that chair when ! was "a baby boy
Speaking of soldiers graves our hlstor-
ical society here have recently paced d
cannon in the cemetery at WILLIAMSBURG
where some of the soldiers that died here
during the war of 1872 and 1914 We're buried.
There was camp fever here also. | DOUBT
If there are many now living in BurlinS-
ton who ever knew where the soldiers
burial ground" was. The offlcers that
died there were buried in a separate place
and l remember it was enclosed with a
fence and had locust trees planted there;
many of the graves had head stones, but
] cannot remember any names. Ths en-
closure was situated northwesterly from
the camp near the road that runs noftl
to the mouth of the river, ! used to hear
that someone had sleeve buttons taken
from the officers graves, but never saw
them do not know whether these re-