Identifying The Dead

[Johnny_Reb_1865]

Has there been any effort by either the army, US government, or private organizations to identify our Civil War dead using DNA?

 

[John Winn]

I've not heard of any such effort. It would be difficult as they'd first have to dig up remains and be able to extract a good DNA sample (not always possible). Many graves were just pits with many bodies or parts of bodies. Even ones where remains were re-interred in national cemeteries after the war might contain pieces of more than one body. Then they'd have to have a good DNA sample set to compare and that might not actually identify the remains; might just say "this person is likely a fourth cousin" or some such. The living person might have no idea who all the fourth cousins were.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if there have been individual efforts to identify found remains (perhaps by private parties). I'd be very interested to hear of those if anybody knows of such an attempt.

 

[Fairfield]

According to what I've read, the Army POW/MIA operation (which does this) has only a limited budget which it has chosen to devote to recent serviceperson bodies. There is an interesting article on this https://www.staradvertiser.com/2018...-war-soldiers-without-conducting-dna-testing/ regarding the reburial of 2 ACW men who may have had New England connections.

Body retrieval for DNA testing would be pretty expensive. Someone who could afford to do it privately might be hard pressed to find a suspected body except by serendipity (or as noted in the article above). I found a number of the soldiers that I studied have what is called "effigy graves" (that is, the gravestones are really memorials to a soldier whose body is actually not there). Unless they've had research done, I suspect that most of the families don't realize that there is no body there.

 

[John Winn]

According to what I've read, the Army POW/MIA operation (which does this) has only a limited budget which it has chosen to devote to recent serviceperson bodies. There is an interesting article on this https://www.staradvertiser.com/2018...-war-soldiers-without-conducting-dna-testing/ regarding the reburial of 2 ACW men who may have had New England connections.

Body retrieval for DNA testing would be pretty expensive. Someone who could afford to do it privately might be hard pressed to find a suspected body except by serendipity (or as noted in the article above). I found a number of the soldiers that I studied have what is called "effigy graves" (that is, the gravestones are really memorials to a soldier whose body is actually not there). Unless they've had research done, I suspect that most of the families don't realize that there is no body there.

Interesting. BTW, the term usually used for "effigy graves" is cenotaph. Definitely lots of those.

 

[Fairfield]

Thank you for the correction. Yes, I know that it is the the proper name--and "effigy grave" may be local usage (I've encountered it in Connecticut as well). Perhaps "cenotaph" is confused with "war memorial" for some because the effigy graves are found in cemeteries only whereas cenotaphs are to be found in commons and gathering places. But you know what I mean.

 

[John Winn]

Thank you for the correction. Yes, I know that it is the the proper name--and "effigy grave" may be local usage (I've encountered it in Connecticut as well). Perhaps "cenotaph" is confused with "war memorial" for some because the effigy graves are found in cemeteries only whereas cenotaphs are to be found in commons and gathering places. But you know what I mean.

I just mentioned it because a lot of people have never heard the word. I sort of like "effigy graves" and may try that out some time ! You're right about there being a difference between an individual's grave in a cemetery and a memorial so maybe we need to make a distinction.

 

[UCVRelics]

Interesting thought. I don't believe Ive heard of any agency trying per the reasons stated above.