The Confederate Dead

In my research today, I came across this little piece:

The Confederate Dead - The Confederate dead are being removed from the Chickamauga battle field and reinterred in the Confederate cemetery at Marietta, GA. The Journal says that about two hundred bodies arrived there during the past week. (Daily Carolina Times June 19, 1869).

The process of disinterring and then reinterring the earthly remains of soldiers has always held some fascination for me. I've always tried to include these details in the books and articles that I've written. This coincides with the second most-asked question: where is my ancestor buried? Of course, you probably know the most-asked question: do you have a photograph of my ancestor? Of the two regimental histories that I've written, I only have about 10 percent of the men captured in a photograph, and few of the ten percent are in uniform.

So, what does this have to do with NC and the War? There were several North Carolina regiments that fought at Chickamauga.  In the 58th regiment alone there were 57 killed or mortally wounded. A few were disinterred and returned home, like Lt. Col. Edmund Kirby (Richmond, VA) and Pvt. John Eben Childs (Columbia, South Carolina). The vast majority of them lie either still on the field, or at the Marietta Confederate Cemetery in Georgia.