Hillary writes: As we continue our work I am aware that many people come to Stones River on a pilgrimage, a journey to find the place where an ancestor may have been wounded, killed, captured, or even survived. Last week two brothers from California arrived with a photograph of their great-great-grandfather as well as copies of his muster papers from the National Archives. We were able to show the brothers where he had fought as well as provide information about the Pioneer Brigade into which he had been transferred. That brigade-created earthenworks, Stop #4 on our audio tour, is but a few yards from the Visitor Center, remain from the days of the battle. Their great-great-grandfather had helped create and defend the earthworks. After they left I stood near the earthenworks and told visitors, stopping to see them, of the brothers whose great-great-grandfather had fought here and who had brought his photograph and documents to us. Suddenly the visitors became very quiet as they realized this history is very personal, not an abstract war story.
History came alive again this week but in a very different way. Our good friend Bruce Stahly from Grand Marais came to visit, on his own family pilgrimage to solve the mystery of where his great-great-uncle's body might be buried. Bruce's great-great grandfather and his brother both fought in the Civil War as part of the Ohio 9th Cavalry. His great-great-grandfather survived the war, but his great-great-uncle died in a hospital in Pulaski, TN, in the fall of 1864 from "chronic diarrhea" according to his documents. The question of where this man had been buried has haunted Bruce for a long time.
I spent some time with SR Ranger Jim Lewis, who wrote the story of the Stones River Battle for Blue Gray Magazine, to wonder where Bruce's ancestor might be buried. What Jim explained, first to me and then to Bruce when he arrived, was that a National Cemetery had been planned for Columbia, TN, but the opposition to such a project from the Columbia community was so strong that soldiers who would have been buried in that cemetery were dis-interred and re-interred at Stones River National Cemetery. Jim also noted that Pulaski, where Bruce's uncle had died and been buried in the hospital cemetery, was the birthplace of the KKK. Jim indicated that those who died in the Pulaski hospital did not receive any attention, other than removal; the hospital was primarily concerned about those who were still alive. Bodies were buried in trench graves with wooden markers noting the site.
Sometime in 1867 Union soldiers originally buried in Pulaski and later moved to Columbia were finally moved again - a third move - to the Stones River Cemetery. In this process the identities of many of those who had died in Pulaski were lost and then placed in graves of the "unknown."
Jim stated that if you died on the battlefield, those of the battle buried their dead when possible, using facial recognition to identify their comrades, no other means of identification available. Any documents or other papers were likely covered with dried blood, illegible. Bodies were then buried in trench graves, shoulder to shoulder, identified by number and name (if possible) for the length of the trench, noting the location of the trench. When the war ended, "ghoul maps" became tools to relocate those graves. I discovered that many of the soldiers who had died at Pulaski, with the 9th Ohio Cavalry, were now buried in Section L of the Stones River Cemetery, some named and others "unknown." Jim Lewis said that it was quite likely that Bruce's great-great-uncle is buried in one of those known graves in that section.
As some of you may remember the Stones River Cemetery starts about 200 feet from our Park house. Bruce visited the Cemetery when he first got here and after our visit with Jim, we went back over to Section L, the Ohio 9th area, to bring some kind of resolution to Bruce's mystery. These days at Stones River have been a time of remembrance and honoring the life that his great-great-uncle gave for the Union. The 150 year mystery of not knowing where Willis L. Wright was buried has been given a location, even if not a specific grave. This pilgrim leaves for Minnesota tomorrow with a new piece and image of family history.
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