I realize this is an unpleasant subject, but thinking of battles like Gettysburg, with 50,000 killed in three days, it occurs to me to ask how on earth did they bury all those bodies? Plus, it would have to be done quickly to avoid the spread of disease. Who buried them? Did they use prisoners, free slaves, or did they hire locals?
Here's a bit on it:
New York Times - July 11, 1863
OUR GETTYSBURG CORRESPONDENCE; The Last of the Dead Buried--Condition of the Wounded--The Battle-field and Relic Gatherers.
Published: July 15, 1863
GETTYSBURGH. Saturday, July 11, 1863.
The last of the rebel dead on the battle-field were buried only yesterday. They were principally found near the foot of Round Top Ridge, where some of the most terrific fighting of the battle took place, between a portion of LONGSTREET'S forces and the Excelsior brigade. The bodies numbered, in all, about fifty. Quite a number, nearer the centre, had been buried the day previous. Decomposition had progressed so far as to render it impossible to handle the bodies at all, and graves were necessarily dug close by the side of them, and they simply turned over into them. The dead horses which have been strewn over the field for miles around since the battle, emitting the most offensive odor, are also now being rapidly buried.
There are still about three thousand wounded in the principal hospitals throughout the village, all of whom are well cared for. There are in addition to this number about a thousand rebel wounded in the place, nearly all of whom are in the Pennsylvania College building, which is used as a hospital; it is the best and most spacious building in the place, and was taken possession of as a hospital during the first day's fight on Wednesday. Most of the rebel wounded are under the charge of Dr. H.D. FRASER, Division Surgeon under the rebel Gen. ANDERSON. The rest of them are under the care of Dr. W.B. REULISON, of New-York City, who has chief charge of the Cavalry corps Hospital, at the Presbyterian church, which is one of the very best conducted hospitals in the place. Gov. CURTIN has been here for a couple of days, giving his personal attention to the wounded and otherwise making himself useful.
The battle-field is visited daily by thousands of people from all sections of the country. Many come in quest of those who have fallen in battle, while most of them come through sheer curiosity. Thousands of dollars' worth of guns and other military Valuables, are carried away by them from the field, notwithstanding the pretended vigilance of those charged with the duty of preventing such offences, and the ground for miles, in all directions is still thickly strewn with all manner of such articles. The Village is, of necessity, very much crowded, and hundreds of visitors are obliged to seek the hospitality of private dwellings, the hotels being wholly incapable of accommodating them all. Most of the citizens remained in the place during the battle, and those who did go away have again returned, and once more resumed their usual callings. There is but little business, however, as yet, of any kind transacted, nearly all the merchandise having been carried a way either by the rebels when in possession of the place, or by the owners of the property themselves; and most of the citizens, are devoting themselves almost exclusively to the care of the wounded. There were several citizens wounded during the progress of the battle, but only one killed -- Miss MINNIE WADE, a young lady about 20 years of age, who was in her dwelling at the time.
A book I would highly suggest - very good read - and covers it all:
A Strange and Blighted Land -- Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle
by Gregory A. Coco
Walt Whitman once wrote, "The real war will never get in the books." He may have felt differently had he ever read A Strange and Blighted Land -- Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle. An exhaustive compilation of first-hand accounts of the Gettysburg battlefield in the days, weeks, and months following the fight, this book goes a long way toward capturing the true pity and terror of the Civil War.
Gregory Coco goes beyond the usual sources to bring us little-known accounts from soldiers and civilians, doctors and nurses, Good Samaritans who came to help the wounded and the dying, and callous souls who came to gawk and profit from the most gory spectacle ever seen on the continent. The result is a heartbreaking story of the human misery caused by war.
While sometimes harrowing to read, the book offers a wealth of detail on how the town of Gettysburg, a small hamlet of 2,400 people, coped with the enormous problem of burying 7,000 dead and caring for 20,000 wounded men abandoned by both armies. Coco tells us about the initial burial trenches on the fields and farms where the struggle took place, then takes us on a tour of the vast hospitals that surrounded Gettysburg. You will learn about Camp Letterman, a unique central Army hospital where the most seriously injured men, both Union and Confederate, received tender, humane care.
The author discusses how both armies coped with the large number of prisoners taken during the battle and chronicles their sometimes surprising experiences. Finally, he describes the citizens' drive to clean up the town, create Gettysburg National Cemetery, and send the Confederate dead home in the decade after the battle.
This is a splendid book about one of the most terrible events in our nation's history. I highly recommend it for anyone who seeks to understand the battle of Gettysburg and the human cost of the Civil War.
A short explanation:
Burying the Dead
After the battle of Gettysburg, thousands of those killed during the battle still lay in the fields surrounding the town. With Lee's retreat and Meade's pursuit, the armies left their dead behind unburied. And so it was left to local citizens to bury those men who had fallen in the three days of fighting that had ravaged the area surrounding their town.
As Pennsylvania's Governor Andrew G. Curtin visited the battlefield in the weeks following the battle, he was horrified to see the condition of the fields, littered with half-buried or unburied soldiers. A local attorney named David Wills had a plan where the government would purchase a piece of land on which to build a cemetery for the Union dead. Wills' plan called for Pennsylvania to seek help from the 17 other Union state whose sons had died at Gettysburg to cover the cost of reburial and care of the cemetery.
Wills' purchased 17 acres on Cemetery Hill at a cost of $2 475.87 and commissioned landscape artist William Saunders to design this new cemetery and the construction of the cemetery itself began soon itself. Work on the reburial of the soldiers and construction of the cemetery went slowly. Only 100 dead could be buried per day, as per a contract signed with a local man, F.W. Biesecker, and a hard winter prevented the cemetery from being completed until March 18, 1864.
Off the top of my head - it's been said that quite a few deaths of the civilian populations are attributed to the disease's created by the dead - mainly from the horses - which were the last to be eliminated - mainly by burning as the carcasses would have been too large to bury. One account I have read (think it's Greg Coco's book) - is that the bottleflies were so thick that they covered every inch of the fences. Another tale is that turkey vultures from miles away descended at Gettysburg in droves - which their descendants exist on the battlefield to this day (I've seen them - but not sure of the factual truth of it). Greg Coco's book is one of a kind, in that the whole book is dedicated to the aftermath, and he pulls no punches - the book is like an accident scene - you don't want to look, but most times inevitably do.Not an all inclusive answer to your question, but is a summary of what occured.