The Louisiana in the Civil War Message Board

Pleasant Hill Union dead

I am wondering what solid information there is on the burial of the Union dead at Pleasant Hill.

Who handled the original burials and where were they buried? Right where they fell individually, or in a mass grave somewhere else? By Southern burial parties, local civilians, or by Union burial parties?

I realize they probably ended up at Chalmette or somewhere years later etc as Unknowns but I wonder about the place of their original interment and how it was done. Did the Confederates gather the Union dead up for a trench burial, or did the Union regiments gather up their own dead for a quick burial in specific spots?

Who then later handled their retrieval for reburial and what records are available? Were the exhumation teams able to identify specific sites as the burial places of specific Union regiments etc or was it all just blind digging up bones?

The permanent gravesites of several men of the Fourteenth Iowa for instance are not known (and may not ever be now) but I wonder what is known for certain, if anything, about what happened to their bodies on the day they were killed. And what is known for certain about the day when these bodies were exhumed (assuming they were)?

I am also seeking the grave of William B Wade of the 14th who is said to have died of disease in New O on April 1 1864 and buried in Monument National in New Orleans(according to the roster) but I can't find his name listed in Chalmette or elsewhere. His death wasn't during the fog of battle so he should have been easily identifiable when buried.

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