Brave Annie Roberts at Gettysburg and Exhumation of Graves

Mike Serpa

Major
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
She struggles her way from New York City to Gettysburg because "She had a husband and a brother in the 14th Brooklyn, and both were dead or severely wounded on that battle-plain."... "She found her noble gray-haired brother with a led torn off. At length heard from her brave husband, a wounded prisoner in Libby."

The story goes on to tell how how, "Some exhumed hundreds of bodies, but never found the dead for whom they searched." Is this a true statement? Did this happen at Gettysburg? Did this occur at other battlefields?

"The blue and gray; a history of the conflicts during Lee's invasion and Battle of Gettysburg" Page 137
by
Gilbert, J. Warren
Published c1922
https://archive.org/stream/grayandblueconfl00gilbrich#page/136/mode/2up/search/Carrie+Sheads
 
If it did, I have yet to read of it? Perhaps? I've read a lot of accounts- nurses helping newly arrived families, families going from hospital to hospital, families finding word of a loved one's death and staying to nurse- hundreds of accounts out there. It really was a shambles, post battle. Citizens were hitching up wagons and bringing in dead and wounded a week and more post battle. Crazy.

I can't imagine someone digging up graves, or allowed to but in the chaos, could have happened. This particular book seems touristy- with facts wrong anyway, not a genuine ' Gettysburg ' book. Others, from Gettysburg or who had done their homework for instance would not have referred to Mary Virginia as ' Jenny ' Wade. The dates on the Confederate dead are very off, too- Weaver's work for the families began in 1870. Someone who had researched matters would not have made such an obvious mistake.
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Thanks. It seemed odd.


I came back here to correct this- love to know how many times I've been wrong. We'd be counting until next Sunday.

Just found yet another account by a nurse/relief worker at Gettysburg. Women did indeed open graves, with help and a sanctioned thing. It wasn't disrespectful, they were frantic to find their loved ones. Can you imagine? Since 2017 I've found stories by any number of witnesses- the women who made the trip as relief workers from Lancaster helped one woman after she found her ( son or husband, can't remember off hand ). It's a scene you can't get out of your head.
 
I came back here to correct this- love to know how many times I've been wrong. We'd be counting until next Sunday.

Just found yet another account by a nurse/relief worker at Gettysburg. Women did indeed open graves, with help and a sanctioned thing. It wasn't disrespectful, they were frantic to find their loved ones. Can you imagine? Since 2017 I've found stories by any number of witnesses- the women who made the trip as relief workers from Lancaster helped one woman after she found her ( son or husband, can't remember off hand ). It's a scene you can't get out of your head.
Out of desperation they were determined to know the fate of their loved ones. Thanks, JPK.
 
I was going to add that I read a nurse's story about how a woman came to their hospital (can't remember which one now) and the woman was so frantic, she was digging with her bare hands to find her husband and she did. It never left that nurse's brain.

I remember one account of a battle which has particularly stayed with me. It was of an officer, I think a major. His wife traveled to the battlefield (she must have been very close because it was within hours) and she wrote the memoirs. The line that stayed with me was how she searched and searched among the dead and finally found a horse, "and it was a horse we had both loved and it was dead" and under it was her husband. She thought he was dead and he was left for dead. With great struggle she managed to pull him out and he was barely alive, but alive, she nursed him for a few hours and then he died but at least she found him. I think she dedicated the rest of her time in the war to nursing.

Being a horse nut, this is the only reference I've ever read in a diary, especially a woman's diary, that it was a horse they both loved.
 
She struggles her way from New York City to Gettysburg because "She had a husband and a brother in the 14th Brooklyn, and both were dead or severely wounded on that battle-plain."... "She found her noble gray-haired brother with a led torn off. At length heard from her brave husband, a wounded prisoner in Libby."

The story goes on to tell how how, "Some exhumed hundreds of bodies, but never found the dead for whom they searched." Is this a true statement? Did this happen at Gettysburg? Did this occur

I could see it shortly after battles, I've always been struck by how many were exhumed and moved postwar here...…always seemed a bit creepy to me, part of em would be decomposed here, then move the few remaining bones elsewhere......
 
I could see it shortly after battles, I've always been struck by how many were exhumed and moved postwar here...…always seemed a bit creepy to me, part of em would be decomposed here, then move the few remaining bones elsewhere......
I agree it is creepy. Don't know if I could do it even under those conditions.
 
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