There are likely many Yankee soldiers buried in unmarked graves in the south. As Sherman's troops marched through Georgia, pillaging, burning and stealing the few assets remaining, not only food and forage, but precious family treasures that had been passed down through generations.

Often there was wanton destruction of crops and food supplies that could not be consumed by the invaders. In many instances homes and barns were burned. No one has been able to explain to me how the burning of a city or a home where no soldiers and men able to resist military force are present would make an invasion easier. My sources are a few personal diaries that I have read as well as novels written shortly after the way.

I am sure some of those "old" Southern Gentlemen, had an occasion to take a secreted pistol and approach a union soldier and arrange for the soldier to meet God and His judgment. This I cannot source, but it would be a safe wager that some of the "slaves" that remained on their owners plantation because of loyalty to their "masters" assisted in disposing of the evidence.

The reconstruction was horrible for the residents of the Confederate States. Land was stolen using unreasonable tax assessments, citizens and freed slaves' need for food was not met except in more instances than not by former owners. Many slaves refused to abandon the only home they had ever known and were employed by former masters or were allowed to live with there families. It would be very difficult to provide a specific source for my statement, but the very slow recovery of the South from the effects of the Civil War speak for themselves.

It is obvious that the system of slavery was very bad, but it was the law of the land, and the United States is a nation required to operate under the "Rule of Law". This was true prior to 1860 and is true today....God Bless America.