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“Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead; glory and kingship be His for ever and ever.” Revelation 1:5
Historian's Corner
Kelly Grimaldi, Historian, Albany Diocesan Cemeteries
As we come upon the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, my thoughts have been focused on the soldiers and sailors who served in that war and are interred in Historic St. Agnes Cemetery. I force myself to look beyond any romanticized concepts of patriotism and heroism and think about death - it cannot be ignored nor can it be trivialized as a consequence of war. The death toll during the Civil War was staggering and adding to the tragedy of lives cut short was the fact that there was no process in place to effectively and compassionately deal with piles of dead bodies littering battlefields, streets and makeshift hospital morgues. In the years between 1861 and 1865, our country experienced a type of barbarism that could not have been foreseen. That explains why there was no standard, consistent and effective means to facilitate the task of identifying, gathering and transporting dead soldiers and worse, no reliable process for notifying next of kin.
Drew Gilpin Faust, author of “This Republic of Suffering”, describes battlefields after the fighting stopped. With no process for managing the dead, men lay there while swarms of civilians scoured the area looking for relatives. Many people robbed the dead making it less likely that they would be identified. Others came to satisfy a morbid curiosity. Faust notes that in some cases the dead were left to the elements for so long, bodies were nothing more that bones in shoes (if the shoes were not stolen too). The smell of rotting corpses and the sight of crows pecking away flesh was horrific and went against the moral fiber of a country steeped deeply in the traditions of hearth, home and Christianity. These things, Faust argues, weighed heavily on a society that coveted Christian rituals related to dying, death and burial. As the number of dead amounted, decent Christian burials became increasingly rare. Soldiers were often dumped, identities unknown, into mass graves denying any sense of closure for their family. How incredibly sad that is even now – 150 years after the fact.
Perhaps the only positive thing we can say about the Civil War death toll is that it fostered the emergence of the funeral industry and professionalized the undertaker. It eventually ended the neglectful means of accounting for (and burying) the dead and provided families some measure of comfort. But it came at a terrible price and it came too late for most. We can’t change what happened then, but we can take time now to right a wrong wherever the opportunity presents itself. I will do my part by working to make sure no Civil War veteran’s grave is unmarked here in St. Agnes Cemetery. If you would like to know how you can help, please contact me: KellyAnn.Grimaldi@rcda.org or call 518-463-0134.
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