Elliott Gettysburg burial map

[Russell]

How accurate do you think the Elliott burial map is? For example, looking at the Rose woods you see graves all in the woods.

 

[Lincoln56]

How accurate do you think the Elliott burial map is? For example, looking at the Rose woods you see graves all in the woods.

This would be a good starting point for the discussion; a previous thread on this site from 2015:

The Elliot Map, Do You Know? | Gettysburg

The Elliot Map, both chilling and striking- an incredible reminder of Gettysburg's most tragic legacy, the war dead, was completed in 1864. Perhaps arguable in content but given the date- in 1864 the mind-boggling task of recovering our dead for proper internment had just been completed. Barely...

civilwartalk.com

And there is this one as well from 2020:

Elliott Map's Singular Graves, Naming The Dead Amidst So Many- Why? | Gettysburg

One of the most horrifically stark portions of S.G. Elliott's 1864 map of Gettysburg's aftermath. All the IIIIIII's? Not shading by an artist, they're " rebel " graves on the battlefiels. ttttttt, would be Union graves. When the National Cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated in November, 1863 it...

civilwartalk.com

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

LOVE when these older threads get bumped.

It's an educational opportunity for newer members and allows new scholarship to be added to the discussions. Win-win.

 

[Russell]

My question is this, my GGGrandfater from the 24th Ga., died at Camp Letterman on Aug. 19 he was buried next to a 19yo soldier from New York, yet Elloitt has the graves drawn separately. Could this just have been an easier for him draw it?

 

[Poorlaggedman]

How accurate do you think the Elliott burial map is? For example, looking at the Rose woods you see graves all in the woods.

Rose woods is not even in the ballpark of accurate on the Elliot map. It's a major blemish on an otherwise interesting resource. There's more graves than there were deaths in Longstreet's two divisions by a bit. Even if it was exact to his deaths, it would still be overdone because many soldiers die in field hospitals, battlefield graves should be half or even less of deaths. So it's not close at all.

Tim Smith did a program on the map, it's worth checking out. I'm not so sure how accurate his assumption about Elliot's involvement in the map actually is. About half of it is about Gettysburg and half is about Antietam.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

There's more graves than there were deaths in Longstreet's two divisions by a bit.

Any chance the Confederates buried some Union soldiers there and that ran up the numbers of those counted as being Southern? Or did Elliot draw his map after the graves had all (in theory) been excavated?

 

[Poorlaggedman]

Any chance the Confederates buried some Union soldiers there and that ran up the numbers of those counted as being Southern? Or did Elliot draw his map after the graves had all (in theory) been excavated?

The Confederates in that area barely had time to bury their own dead. They buried some of them but others were left in open graves (there's a picture of one) or left lined up (there's an account from the PA reserves of coming across them).

It's just a totally unrealistic and cartoonish number of graves on the Gettysburg Elliot map in that area. People make much of the Wheatfield fight but you're talking a few hundred dead between both sides. ~900 Confederate dead between McLaw's and Hood's Division and that's not broken down into KIA and those who die in field hospitals later, that's also encompassing Little Round Top, Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard, Trostle Farm, the Codori thicket. I think most folks have a way overblown image of how many corpses are laying around after the smoke clears. Just mathematically by the area fought over there's a lot of space to spread those bodies out.

 

[RedRover]

I think Elliott's map is pretty neat, but he's just giving a ball-park of the graves with his hatch-marks. The Confederate casualty reports were certainly accurate, so far as reported. But they were DEFINITELY incomplete. Lee's army reported:

Busey and Martin's research (2005) from (incomplete) regimental records 4,708 killed, 12,693 wounded, 5,830 captured or missing.
Busey's 2017 update reports record of even more Confederate burials on or about the field based on the incomplete records:

Samuel Weaver reported in 1864 relative to the exhumations:

Weaver claims in searching for Union dead, he opened the graves of at least 3,000 Confederates on the field, and estimates the total number of Confederate burials on the field and at the hospitals at 7,000.

A visitor to the battlefield noted:

The US reported 3,100 US killed in action, and there was a considerable number mortally wounded, etc., though Busey's 2011 "Union Casualties at Gettysburg" evidently documents considerably more, so the 4,000 US burials number above might be relatively accurate.

 

[Tom Elmore]

View attachment 481257
My question is this, my GGGrandfater from the 24th Ga., died at Camp Letterman on Aug. 19 he was buried next to a 19yo soldier from New York, yet Elloitt has the graves drawn separately. Could this just have been an easier for him draw it?

Actually, it would be unusual to find Union and Confederate soldiers buried side-by-side on the battlefield or at the field hospitals. I have a partial list of Confederate dead at Camp Letterman and they were buried in at least nine rows containing 30+ graves in each row. Without further analysis I can't rule out Union soldiers being buried among those Confederates but my guess is they were not. Could you provide further details on the New York soldier?

It was my understanding the Union and Confederate wounded were segregated at Camp Letterman, and further, the Union soldiers were evidently grouped by corps. For example, the First Corps was assigned 16 tents holding 192 beds (divided into wards, 48 beds to the ward, each under charge of an Assistant Surgeon), the whole under charge of Surgeon William Fisher Norris.

Would your ancestor happen to be T. K. Lawrence of Company G, 24th Georgia, who died on August 19? He was buried in Row 3, Grave 35. He was reportedly reinterred at Savannah (Laurel Grove) in 1871. A different list had him in Row 1, Grave 39, but that appears to be an error. After the war, the North Carolina burials at Camp Letterman went to Raleigh, while others went to Richmond (Hollywood Cemetery).

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

People make much of the Wheatfield fight but you're talking a few hundred dead between both sides. ~900 Confederate dead between McLaw's and Hood's Division and that's not broken down into KIA and those who die in field hospitals later, that's also encompassing Little Round Top, Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard, Trostle Farm, the Codori thicket.

Guilty as charged - I've never actually thought to put a number on the casualty count of either side at that end of the field on July 2, but my guess would have been much higher than that.

 

[Russell]

Actually, it would be unusual to find Union and Confederate soldiers buried side-by-side on the battlefield or at the field hospitals. I have a partial list of Confederate dead at Camp Letterman and they were buried in at least nine rows containing 30+ graves in each row. Without further analysis I can't rule out Union soldiers being buried among those Confederates but my guess is they were not. Could you provide further details on the New York soldier?

It was my understanding the Union and Confederate wounded were segregated at Camp Letterman, and further, the Union soldiers were evidently grouped by corps. For example, the First Corps was assigned 16 tents holding 192 beds (divided into wards, 48 beds to the ward, each under charge of an Assistant Surgeon), the whole under charge of Surgeon William Fisher Norris.

Would your ancestor happen to be T. K. Lawrence of Company G, 24th Georgia, who died on August 19? He was buried in Row 3, Grave 35. He was reportedly reinterred at Savannah (Laurel Grove) in 1871. A different list had him in Row 1, Grave 39, but that appears to be an error. After the war, the North Carolina burials at Camp Letterman went to Raleigh, while others went to Richmond (Hollywood Cemetery).

Yes that is him.

 

[Russell]

Yes that is him.

View attachment 481300

They didn't segregate them when they died.

 

[Poorlaggedman]

The 3,000+ Union graves in the cemetery are not a complete accounting. A good number (~1500 according to Gregory Coco) were recovered by families. You can bet that some Union remains went South after the war and that Weaver put Confederates (not just field hospital deaths) into the Nat'l Cemetery. 1000:1 odds both those happened. These guys aren't trained grave registrations no matter what they thought they were, the soldiers aren't wearing IDs, and it's a battlefield.

Travis and Busey's "Confederate/Union casualties at Gettysburg" are better than any other source, I just can't figure out for the life of me why they wouldn't print the totals they come up with for various units in the same volume. Several times I've counted individual units up but it's a tiring process. There's also mistakes in it, as there will be in any source. The pattern I've found is that some of the "KIA" are actually mortally wounded, leaving even less battlefield graves than you would expect. It seems to me that at least a third of deaths occurs in a field hospital and not on the field.

It's my suspicion that more information exists about burials and graves than is generally known. The NPS has a vested interest in not advertising information on graves because more than people understand are still out there on the field and it can be a controversial topic. I've always felt I've gotten the cold shoulder when seeking information on graves or any of the maps that Weaver made or any notes of his if they still exist. Gregory Coco's "Strange and Blighted Land" reads like there's resources that exist.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

not advertising information on graves because more than people understand are still out there on the field

I think it is indeed delusional not to realize that Gettysburg and every other battlefield for that matter, is a graveyard. Weaver indicated that fragments of bones and hair were left scattered about by private undertakers hired to recover the dead. The flesh and blood of these men long ago mixed with the soil even if their bones were later removed. That is why it is a hallowed place.

 

[RedRover]

It's my suspicion that more information exists about burials and graves than is generally known. The NPS has a vested interest in not advertising information on graves because more than people understand are still out there on the field and it can be a controversial topic. I've always felt I've gotten the cold shoulder when seeking information on graves or any of the maps that Weaver made or any notes of his if they still exist.

I've noticed the same regarding the NPS. Perhaps there are just some things the staff leaves up to the archaeologists.

In Florida, there was the seven year long Seminole War (1835-1842), with at least 2,000 US deaths (and probably more, as no one as yet has counted the number of deaths among volunteer units). There is a constant refrain and assumption that ALL of the dead were taken up and reburied in St. Augustine... which is not the case (only the 108 bodies of Dade's command, and some others who fell in battle, etc.). Whenever the public stumbles on a long lost post cemetery somewhere, everybody acts surprised.