Pvt. William Holbrook

CplHall140thPA

Private
Joined
Jan 13, 2025
My 4th Great Grandfather William Holbrook served in the 14th Michigan Infantry and died on September 7th, 1862, of Disease while in Iuka MS, and was originally buried there and sometime afterwards he was reinterred in the Corinth National Cemetery.
However, there is no FindAGrave page or marker for him. I can't seem to find any evidence of his tombstone or where he is buried other than in post war records stating simply as such. Basically, I don't know where he is buried. Another thing is he lied about his age so he could serve and be 7 years younger. According to my grandfather he was a surgeon in the regiment. I'm really just interested in where he is buried. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Screenshot_20-7-2026_212559_www.ancestry.com.webp
 
Is it possible that he was buried as an unknown? By that I mean that they knew a person of that name had been disinterred at Iuka, but by the time the remains were brought to Corinth they didn't know which coffin was his. The reason I mention this is that I've read a description somewhere of coffins being chalked with the names of the deceased, but then being left out in the rain such that the names were erased. They didn't know who was who at this point, so they were all buried as unknown. I don't know at which cemetery this occurred, so I'm not saying that it was Corinth, just that something similar might have happened there.

I'm also a bit confused about him being enlisted as a private but your grandfather saying he was a surgeon. That seems a little strange to me.
 
I have in my original notes directly from him that he was a surgeon of some kind, and that he was simply a private. Which seems odd to me, and I can't find any mention of it.
Is it possible that he was buried as an unknown? By that I mean that they knew a person of that name had been disinterred at Iuka, but by the time the remains were brought to Corinth they didn't know which coffin was his. The reason I mention this is that I've read a description somewhere of coffins being chalked with the names of the deceased, but then being left out in the rain such that the names were erased. They didn't know who was who at this point, so they were all buried as unknown. I don't know at which cemetery this occurred, so I'm not saying that it was Corinth, just that something similar might have happened there.

I'm also a bit confused about him being enlisted as a private but your grandfather saying he was a surgeon. That seems a little strange to me.
 
From the Veterans Administration:

"Memphis National Cemetery supervises Corinth National Cemetery. Questions may be answered by contacting the Cemetery Director, Memphis National Cemetery, 3568 Townes Ave., Memphis, TN 38122. Phone: (901) 386-8311.
A burial register is available on the grounds for grave location assistance."
 

U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865

U.S., Civil War Roll of Honor, 1861-1865

U.S., Burial Registers, Military Posts and National Cemeteries, 1862-1960

That's for burial
You did your homework. Good job. Having spent many days at NARA researching another national cemetery and necessarily learning much about the way the overall system developed, here is my assessment: the Union army did a miserable job during the war of compiling death records, despite orders requiring it. Soon after the war, a series of new orders required Quartermasters at every post to survey their area of responsibility for Union burials. This, too, was frequently haphazardly done. In their defense, it's a big country, and this effort was pretty good, mostly sincere and in some cases, well organized. There were also many crooks and incompetents among the contractors used later. I have held such surveys in my hands - the ones I saw were burial lists of headboard transcriptions, usually including name, unit, etc. but lacking maps (even where maps are referenced). There were hundreds of burials sites visited scattered over thousands of square miles. It would be a tough job even today.

Your guy is shown in the published lists as being reburied at Corinth in January, 1867. This is very early in the process, a process which constantly evolved over the primarily two year effort.

My educated guess is that if you went to NARA and looked at the Corinth file, you would find an early burial list for Iuka with Holbrook on it. It is unlikely this list contains any further detail with specific grave location or map. Another source shows 431 unknowns from Iuka were relocated to Corinth. Starting in 1866-67, the QM Dept. hired private contractors to look for additional burials and begin consolidating scattered burials in central locations (like Corinth). These contractors, to my knowledge, never bothered to correlate initial and final individual burial places for unknowns (in case additional info later appeared), because the contracts didn't require it and they weren't going to get paid to do the extra work. So, again, best guess, between QM personnel compiling the initial burial list in 1865-66 and contractor removal several months later, your guy's identifiable info was lost - headboard damaged or rotted away, lettering fading away in the sun, etc. Headboards were often lettered in pencil, so little chance of these surviving a season.

There was a political fight between the secretary of war and the QM Genl over the permanent headstones that dragged on for several years and, thus, further delayed installation of permanent markers, and allowing time for more IDs to be lost. The contracts I have seen required the contractor to attach the (almost always) wood original headboard to the new coffin for the trip to the new cemetery to preserve personal info. I'm confident he is at Corinth among 3800 or so other unknowns. I seriously doubt if the records show where in the cemetery the 431 Iuka unknowns are located.

I got lucky and found the smoking gun I was seeking at NARA by looking in a good old 'miscellaneous' file (where it should not have been). This consisted of an 1873 burial log that is not included in the online scanned logs on the NARA website. I wouldn't bet on a repeat of that kind of luck, but if you win the lottery, we'll go to DC and I'll show you my trick.
 
You did your homework. Good job. Having spent many days at NARA researching another national cemetery and necessarily learning much about the way the overall system developed, here is my assessment: the Union army did a miserable job during the war of compiling death records, despite orders requiring it. Soon after the war, a series of new orders required Quartermasters at every post to survey their area of responsibility for Union burials. This, too, was frequently haphazardly done. In their defense, it's a big country, and this effort was pretty good, mostly sincere and in some cases, well organized. There were also many crooks and incompetents among the contractors used later. I have held such surveys in my hands - the ones I saw were burial lists of headboard transcriptions, usually including name, unit, etc. but lacking maps (even where maps are referenced). There were hundreds of burials sites visited scattered over thousands of square miles. It would be a tough job even today.

Your guy is shown in the published lists as being reburied at Corinth in January, 1867. This is very early in the process, a process which constantly evolved over the primarily two year effort.

My educated guess is that if you went to NARA and looked at the Corinth file, you would find an early burial list for Iuka with Holbrook on it. It is unlikely this list contains any further detail with specific grave location or map. Another source shows 431 unknowns from Iuka were relocated to Corinth. Starting in 1866-67, the QM Dept. hired private contractors to look for additional burials and begin consolidating scattered burials in central locations (like Corinth). These contractors, to my knowledge, never bothered to correlate initial and final individual burial places for unknowns (in case additional info later appeared), because the contracts didn't require it and they weren't going to get paid to do the extra work. So, again, best guess, between QM personnel compiling the initial burial list in 1865-66 and contractor removal several months later, your guy's identifiable info was lost - headboard damaged or rotted away, lettering fading away in the sun, etc. Headboards were often lettered in pencil, so little chance of these surviving a season.

There was a political fight between the secretary of war and the QM Genl over the permanent headstones that dragged on for several years and, thus, further delayed installation of permanent markers, and allowing time for more IDs to be lost. The contracts I have seen required the contractor to attach the (almost always) wood original headboard to the new coffin for the trip to the new cemetery to preserve personal info. I'm confident he is at Corinth among 3800 or so other unknowns. I seriously doubt if the records show where in the cemetery the 431 Iuka unknowns are located.

I got lucky and found the smoking gun I was seeking at NARA by looking in a good old 'miscellaneous' file (where it should not have been). This consisted of an 1873 burial log that is not included in the online scanned logs on the NARA website. I wouldn't bet on a repeat of that kind of luck, but if you win the lottery, we'll go to DC and I'll show you my trick.
First of all, thank you very much for this. Second, you are saying that the 1873 burial log is not in the scanned logs and can only be viewed in person. Correct? Another thing I want to know is if you found the date he was originally buried. I'm assuming September- October 1862.
 
Happy to help someone who has pursued all available angles. Let me repeat, my example is from Beaufort, not Corinth, but was included to show it's not necessarily impossible to find more at NARA. The main place to look for Corinth records (not where I got lucky) is easily found at NARA - there's a modern typed index of cemeteries to find the files, but, yes, you have to do it in person (or hire a private researcher). It's in downtown DC. This presumed Corinth file could include miscellaneous documents altogether separate from the scanned burial logs and could be five pages or 500. As I said, the pattern for your guy's details brought to mind those early postwar headboard transcriptions I found in my search (filed in the normal place already mentioned). If you want to pursue this, I will look up the file location for the index - though it's an automatic for NARA staff as it's the first stop for anyone researching the early days of the national cemetery program. You could email them and ask for a wild guess on page count. The staff is wonderful, but limited to brief attention to any single inquiry. If you go this way I can write the request for you.

I attach a link to the Jan '67 removals I previously described. You could order his service record from NARA, but I doubt if it would contain anything more than you already know. I have never looked for Union hospital records, but also doubt they would contain anything useful.

The real question is: where specifically is he at Corinth? Unfortunately, I'm afraid that answer almost certainly became unavailable by the time he was moved in '67 - otherwise he would have a headstone. I probably shouldn't go that far because the long delay in getting those made could mean his grave at Corinth was marked with a wood headboard, but it deteriorated before the permanent one was installed. I guess you could wander around the cemetery and see if any early 'Unknown' headstones are scattered among the knowns. Do I recall seeing that Corinth is arranged by state? If so, same approach, but much more limited (and still not definitive).

Printed page 107: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.099107522&seq=475&q1=holbrook

Printed page 31: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.091652507&seq=65&q1=iuka
 

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