13,000 union soldiers died at the prison. rather than receive a proper burial, they were placed shoulder to shoulder in shallow trenches. that's why the headstones are so close together. clara barton (who founded the red cross) went back to place the headstones a few years later.
groups of union soldiers known as "the raiders" stole, murdered, and terrorized the other prisoners. six were arrested and tried by other union soldiers, hanged, and buried separate from the other union soldiers.
there were a lot of these.
there are monuments all over the place. this one was really creepy looking. it had a nice verse at the bottom though. "turn you to the stronghold ye prisoners of hope," zechariah 9:12. most of the monuments were commissioned around the turn of the century by northern states in honor of their fallen soldiers. wisconsin had the largest one by far.
i fly out of atl wednesday morning for salt lake city. i present during a poster session on saturday morning with brett and a professor. other than that i plan on attending a few talks and enjoying salt lake city a little more than i did last year when we went to baltimore.
No comments:
Post a Comment