Laid to Rest In Mass Graves

Commanders on both sides were unprepared to properly bury the 535 soldiers who died. As Union troops retreated to Rolla, Southern soldiers were left to dig graves for the dead under intensely hot conditions as bodies began to decompose and flies became intolerable. William Watson of Louisiana recalled these conditions as the men found a sink hole a convenient place to bury about 30 unidentified Union soldiers. In 1867, the military re-interred the bodies buried here and elsewhere on the battlefield in Springfield National Cemetery, one of the first national cemeteries established after the war. Because identification tags had not been issued, thousands of soldiers were buried as unknown, including all the Union soldiers here and a handful of Confederates.

Missouri · United States