One of my g-g-greats had a last name that could be spelled several ways. I should say
was spelled several ways. As a result, he is on regimental records as three people, at least. He was a farrier, so is also listed as a civilian or soldier in several Confederate cavalry regiments. He is the poster boy for how scrambled Civil War records can be.
Southeast corner of Stones River National Cemetery where Union Casualties from the Battle of Franklin are buried.
Small white marble blocks with numbers on the top mark the graves of unknowns.
photo by author
I volunteer at Stones River National Battlefield. The National Cemetery at Stones River is one of the three originals that General George Thomas created in 1865. Very few of the graves in the cemetery are the first one where the remains were interred. Under the supervision of a chaplain, the 111th USCT collected the remains of Union soldiers from far away as seventy miles.
The casualties from Franklin were interred & disinterred three times. A trench burial behind a hospital had records of the names of the men buried there, but no record of which body belonged to that name. Most of the unknowns at Stones River National Cemetery fall into that category. Their death was recorded, but there was no way to identify the remains.
When an inspector general surveyed Forrest's command in 1864 (if memory serves) a number of the regiments on his books did not exist on the Confederate Army roster. Many of the men in those units had deserted from infantry regiments. As you might expect, an unknowable number of them had joined the cavalry under nomes de guerre. That is one way a man can be on the muster roll of two regiments, or be on the roll of a regiment that does not exist on the official rosters.
Here is an example of a headstone with an error on it. For two decades my family & I have participated in the Hallowed Ground lantern tour of Stones River Cemetery. We portrayed the family of a soldier named Spencer Sober, Ohio. His headstone reads Spencer Saber, Ohio. He had originally been buried by his comrades near the brigade headquarters in Murfreesboro. His marker would have been made of wood. Nobody knows when the error in spelling his name occurred. The documentation spells his name correctly. The National Park Service considers the headstone a historical artifact, so will not change it. In a cemetery run by the VA, it would be changed. When you look at the hand written records, it is a wonder that half the headstones don't have typos.
The story of the creation of the cemetery & the collection of the remains by the 111th USCT's is the subject of living history & Ranger led programs at the park. There is a Confederate mass grave in a local cemetery. A committee of local ladies had remains were gathered from trench burials & hospitals to a plot of land on the south side of Murfreesboro. There were a substantial number of known individuals marked at that site. It was decided to move them to a new, fashionable, cemetery. The men doing the work were paid very little & were not supervised properly. None of the remains were identified, so it is a mass grave now.
As long as I am on the subject, the face is the first part of the body to deteriorate. That is because of the number of openings that allow insects to enter the body. For that reason, a body might be all but intact, but still be very difficult to identify. I have a period advertisement for a process that restores the facial features of deceased soldiers. It sounds preposterous, but who knows. I will have to dig that one out if I can & post it here.
I assume this is more answer than you expected. I recommend
This Republic of Suffering, Death & Dying During the Civil War it is the best source on the subject that I know of. Believe it or not, it is also an excellent read.