Re-Burying the Dead

Of the 266 soldiers buried here, only two are fully identified. Heavy fire often kept either side from claiming the dead, and after both battles the armies had to maneuver quickly. Some of the wounded lay for days in the blistering sun. After the fighting, burial details dug shallow, unmarked graves. The process took weeks. Autumn rains soon washed away the thin cover of soil, exposing the remains. In 1866, the United Daughters of the Confederacy established Groveton Cemetery and had these remains reinterred here. A Harpers Weekly magazine correspondent wrote that in the long, luxuriant grass one strikes his foot against skulls and bones, mingled with the deadly missiles that brought them to the earth, and that hollow skulls lie contiguous to the hemispheres of exploded shells. Battlefield graves were unmarked, or identified with sticks, headboards, or branches. Hundreds of soldiers received no burial at all.

Haymarket, Virginia · United States