This is perhaps a bit off of the current topic but there were other ways of handling bodies. For example, Capt. Lawrence D. Nicholls, brother of Francis T. Nicholls was killed at the battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862. His wife, Eliza Maurin Nicholls, happened to be in Virginia at the time. She had his body packed in charcoal and shipped back to Donaldsonville by train and he was then buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Donaldsonville. We don't know about any embalming but the charcoal certainly helped keep the body more odor free as it certainly decomposed in the weeklong trip to Louisiana. This may have been done more readily than obtaining alcohol, arsenic or other embalming fluids. Many will remember the case a few years ago of Col. William Shy who I believe was killed at the battle of Nashville. His grave was robbed in the late 1970's and the body was left hanging out of the casket. Investigators thought the body was a very recent death due to it's high state of preservation (investigators initially thought he had been dead only 2-4 months) but he was wearing clothes not of the time period. Further examination revealed the body as Col. W.M. Shy who had been killed at Nashville and the extreme preservation was caused by his body being embalmed in pure arsenic. There is an excellent record of this entire incident at the following URL: http://tennessee-scv.org/Camp854/shy.html