GRAPHIC Sanitary Commission's Eye Witness, Burying The Dead At Fredericksburg

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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Cropped to be able to view the main subjects of O'Sullivan's photograph taken at Fredericksburg, this one in the series seems to be of a minister reading a burial rite. Almost never possible to be 100% certain, accounts by and of Sanitary Commission's Rev. J.A. Stone point to the minister being he.

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Interesting to run into accounts matching some photos from the war. Since the Sanitary Commission was nearly everywhere and left us some of the most detailed, eye-witness reports we have, once in awhile it's obvious Gardner, Cooley, Brady or one of their photographers was around too.

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There are too many awful details within Sullivan's work to absorb- he speaks of shingles used as headstones- like these. Faces of the men, especially the gentleman in a plaid waistcoat, far right are painful to see. Death death and more death, these men have seen ghastly costs of war but still can't wrap their heads around it. How would you?
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Graves are so closely packed one thin shingle seems inches from another.



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This man may be Rev. Stone, one of the Sanitary Commission aid workers sent to Fredericksburg. Have always thought this a prayer book since there's no pencil. Some awful ledger documenting the fallen is a possibility but he seems to be conducting a service or rite for the soldier at his feet.
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burial fred stone.JPG

Closer image from another shot in this famous series. Stone worked in cooperation with the hospitals at Fredericksburg. Soldier on the stretcher seems to have been in one, bandages indicating he'd been wounded and died later.

Other accounts speak of Rev. Stone's work at Fredericksburg. There were so many dead between the 1862 battle and men wounded at Spotsylvania and The Wilderness who perished in hospitals there, could have been another member of the clergy. Job was the same. Gruesome war, heart rending results.
 
JPK
Re Your mention of the graves being so close

It is very likely that there was a common ditch and the bodies were laid in in the order of the makeshift markers.
 
Thanks for posting. Would it not be customary, even in the military, to remove hats during the reading of rites?


Oh, who knows how many traditional marks of respect went by the wayside? Not an expert but would have to think it was all so shocking, if not traumatic seeing what they did one's autopilot got reprogrammed, you know? We can study these images without really thinking what it must have been like to be one of the men in the photo.

Or the photographer told him to put in on..... . Funny you should mention it. Another image where the group of Sanitary Commission staff is posed together, this gentleman has removed his hat.
 
He's definitely reading from that book - but it's a text he's very familiar with, and only needs to glance at from time to time. I recognize that same hand shape and head attitude from pictures of me officiating. I have seen a number of pictures of formal outdoor divine services at the time in which the men have not removed their hats.
 
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