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Post Battle - Confederate Burial Trench #1

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Confederate Burial Trench #1 - Modern Description(s)

FROM: National Park Service signage (at Shiloh Tour Stop 5), June 2000.

Statistics alone do not reveal the magnitude of human suffering and loss at Shiloh. In the battle's aftermath, the piteous cries of the wounded and dying filled these woods. Everywhere the ground was strewn with bodies. The grotesque appearance of many of the corpses shocked eyewitnesses.

Because of the warm weather, General Grant ordered the Federal troops to bury the dead immediately. Many were buried in large trences, Union and Confederate separately.

Casualties at Shiloh were heavy, the worst of the war up to that time.

------------------------------- UNION ARMY

-------------------- Present for Duty Killed Wounded Missing Total Casualties

----------- 66,812 1,754 8,408 2,885 13,047

------------------------------- CONFEDERATE ARMY

-------------------- Present for Duty Killed Wounded Missing Total Casualties

----------- 44,699 1,728 8,012 959 10,699

------------------------------- COMBINED TOTALS

-------------------- Present for Duty Killed Wounded Missing Total Casualties

----------- 111,511 3,482 16,420 3,844 23,746

FROM: Shiloh Historical Handbook Series - publication of the National Park Service. 1961.

All of the Confederate dead are buried on the battlefield in five large trenches.

The day after the battle, General Beauregard dispatched a message to General Grant asking for permission to send a mounted party to the battlefield to bury his dead. In answer, Grant said: "Owing to the warmth of the weather I deemed it advisable to have all the dead of both parties buried immediately...now it is accomplished."

The Confederates and Federals were buried alike in separate trenches on the field. Four years after the battle the Union dead were removed to the newly established national cemetery. The Confederates still rest in the trenches where they were buried by the Federal troops.

Confederate Burial Trench #1 - Modern Photograph(s)