GRAPHIC Question About Sharpsburg Casualty Photograph

What happened to the bodies of Confederates killed at Sharpsburg?
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aka Bowie List
In 1869 Oden Bowie, the Governor of Maryland, requested that Thomas Boullt of Hagerstown, one of the Trustees for Maryland at the Antietam National Cemetery where the Union dead were buried, employ agents to go over the battlefield and mound up the trenches and graves of the Confederate dead, to make careful notes of the locations and, as far as possible, to identify the dead. Link to More Info Bowie was a Mexican War veteran.

Boullt hired Moses Poffinberger and Aaron Good. They listed 758 identifiable remains, and 2,481 unknown. The location of the burials were recorded on the "Bowie List" cataloged by location with descriptions of the burials. Heres a link to an index of the identified remains. Unfortunately, William E Newlin is not included; it is possible that he is listed under a misspelled name.

Ten years after the battle, Henry Mumma was hired to begin removing the remains of the Confederate soldiers - both identified and unknown - to the newly established Washington Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown.
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Mumma identified those he could, but as the Hagerstown Herald Weekly of June 1874 reported:
122 were brought to the Cemetery on Saturday, of whom only the eight following were recognized: M. Grubne, Co. C, 16th Georgia; Benj. Mathews, Co. F, 16th Georgia; E. H. A., Georgia; Capt. N. Reeder, Co. H, 16th Georgia; Wm. Smith, Co. B, 16th Georgia; Thomas Hobbs, Co. K, 16th Georgia; Thomas Sander, Co. G, 10th Georgia; Dr. Braddock, S. C.
The 16th Georgia fought on September 14 1862 at Crampton's Gap. These men were all listed on page 81 of the Bowie List. Their burials were described as “Buried close along the fence on west side of woods back of graveyard in Burkettsville.” The graves in the Washington Confederate Cemetery are laid out in an arc with sections for each state. There are no markers within the burial area.
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A bronze tablet shows the names of those who were identified and large sections of unknowns. Burials are in sections by state and include some from South Mountain and Antietam.
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The Hillsborough Recorder. (Hillsborough, NC), October 22, 1862, page 3.
 
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So most likely our William is buried as an unknown.
Frassanito in his epic work (pages 104 - 108) says this photo of the lone dead Confederate was taken "on the property of Samuel Mumma and in the field adjacent to and southeast of the Smoketown Road." He bases his opinion on the fact that in the upper edge of the OP photo he noted a long row of bodies in the distance.
Based on @connecticut yankee 's description of the location, I'd guess William E Newlin is one of these buried as an unknown on Samuel Mumma's farm?
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From page 36 of the Bowie List.
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From page 37 of the Bowie List
 
Frassanito in his epic work (pages 104 - 108) says this photo of the lone dead Confederate was taken "on the property of Samuel Mumma and in the field adjacent to and southeast of the Smoketown Road." He bases his opinion on the fact that in the upper edge of the OP photo he noted a long row of bodies in the distance. (You can't see those bodies in your cropped photo, but you can in the one I provide below). Those bodies he claims are the ones in the photo immediately below which he identified as being on the Mumma farm.

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Somebody traded.
 
It's incredible that we were able to identify Mr. Newlin! It's so cool to have been even a small part of this.

It's insane we were able to do this!

Personally I'd like to get it out there we were able to do it.

I do know the Gettysburg "sharpshooter" was identified as being a John Rutherford Ash of the 2nd Georgia Infantry Regiment and he actually has an article about him.
 
It's insane we were able to do this!

Personally I'd like to get it out there we were able to do it.

I do know the Gettysburg "sharpshooter" was identified as being a John Rutherford Ash of the 2nd Georgia Infantry Regiment and he actually has an article about him.
This a story that the newspapers/radio/tv would be interested in. they often cover stories about WW1 and WW2 soldier remains being identified...or their crashed airplane found. can u imagine how newsworthy it would be to identify a dead soldier from a picture 150 years later??? If anyone needs help writing up a brief summary/story, I'd be willing to help.
 
This a story that the newspapers/radio/tv would be interested in. they often cover stories about WW1 and WW2 soldier remains being identified...or their crashed airplane found. can u imagine how newsworthy it would be to identify a dead soldier from a picture 150 years later??? If anyone needs help writing up a brief summary/story, I'd be willing to help.

That'd be excellent actually!
I'd like to give everyone here who helped credit.
 
Well, I for one did nothing other than offer an opinion that it likely was Newlin. Its the rest of you that pulled together so many bits of information.

To write up this story we would need to know how the Newlin photo was found...how did somebody think to look through pictures, where they found them, how they came up with a possible match, where they found the newspaper clipping, the cemetary records, the military maps and Frassanito's notes re the photo location. Basically, how did the forensic evidence get pulled together?
I am no expert but am much convinced it is Newlin ...the ear lobes, the eyes/eyebrows, chin, cheek structure. For a more definitive opinion, the evidence could be sent to a forensic archeologist or whatever it is they call those people that can match faces to skulls, etc.

This a great story to tell.
 
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I don't want to divert the thread from Newlin but has anyone attempted to identify the soldiers in these pictures? What's been done in this thread could possibly done for these and other pictures.
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If people are interested in working on these or other pictures, we could start other threads. Its incredible how information can quickly be brought to together (in the Internet Age) when there is a concerted effort.
 
Well, I for one did nothing other than offer an opinion that it likely was Newlin. Its the rest of you that pulled together so many bits of information.

To write up this story we would need to know how the Newlin photo was found...how did somebody think to look through pictures, where they found them, how they came up with a possible match, where they found the newspaper clipping, the cemetary records, the military maps and Frassanito's notes re the photo location. Basically, how did the forensic evidence get pulled together?
I am no expert but am much convinced it is Newlin ...the ear lobes, the eyes/eyebrows, chin, cheek structure. For a more definitive opinion, the evidence could be sent to a forensic archeologist or whatever it is they call those people that can match faces to skulls, etc.

This a great story to tell.

Well honestly I was collecting images of soldiers to add to a database and saw a similarity.

So I decided to post about it here to get second and third hand opinions.
 
At a minimum, any magazines that write about the Civil War would be interested in the story (though I suspect the wider media would be too). Are there any regular publications that people know about? (sorry, I am not knowledgeable about publications).
 
Well done to all of you involved in this! This is pretty darn special in my opinion.

John

Honestly it gives me a lump in my throat.

We've been able to give a dead person in a photograph a name and in a way dignity.

William Newlin...

This is probably the coolest thing I've ever done or been a part of as far as research goes.

I'd like to get into contact with his decendants.
 
At a minimum, any magazines that write about the Civil War would be interested in the story (though I suspect the wider media would be too). Are there any regular publications that people know about? (sorry, I am not knowledgeable about publications).

I think Military Images would be interested in this story.
 
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