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Interesting letters...
I can't imagine the horror of watching the events that continued to unfold after the Confederate retreat. I understand the burning of dead horses and mules turned the air foul, there was wrecked equipment everywhere, and bodies too numerous to try to count. If you look in the National Cemetery today, in excess of 80% of all the graves are marked with a number instead of a name. The reason is that dead Union soldiers were buried in the same type mass graves as the Confederates...not buried together, just similiar trenches. Grant denied southern burial parties access to the field as he had the dead brom both sides buried to stave off disease. After the war, the bodies were exhumed and reburied in what is now the National Cemetery there. If memory serves, the national Cemetery was dedicated in the 1890's long after the war's end.
As an interesting note, the parkland has been extensively mapped using radar devices and it is pretty apparent that there are 2 or 3 union soldiers buried in the Indian Mounds found on the site. Union soldiers because no Confederates were buried anywhere near.
Ed