Roger A. Pryor, of the Memphis Argus, has taken a ride over the field of Shiloh, and contributes many interesting and some horrible facts to that journal. He says: “The whole face of the country, between Corinth and Pittsburgh Landing, is scarred, scratched and wounded with almost indelible traces of ruthless war. Lines of earth works and intrenchments across all the thousand and one roads; lone chimneys burnt and blackened trees, and heaps of rubbish, where once stood smiling homesteads; whole forests peeled or barked, and deadened by the encamping soldiery to make themselves comfortable with bark beds; dwellings, stores, and out-houses in every stage of dilapidation and decay; fields, fenceless and untended, and rapidly growing wild again these are some of the evidences of the fierce struggle.
The war, during its progress, presented many horrible aspects, but none so horrible as this! I saw where hundreds of Confederate dead had been rooted out of their shallow coverings. I cannot call them graves, their flesh eaten by the hogs, and their bones lying scattered and broken and trampled upon in every direction. It transcends anything recorded in civilized history; it almost transcends belief. I was told by some of the people residing near, that the hogs fed so ling in this way, upon human carrion, that the pork became so offensive if could not be eaten and to this day, some of the ladies informed me, they dare not tough any hog’s meat killed in that vicinity, they felt or were afraid that they would be guilty of cannibalism to do so. In one place, about 300 yards south of the church, on Rhea place. I saw where a large number supposed to be 150 at least of Confederates had been tumbled into a gully and covered up with a thin layer of dirt. The washing rains and the hogs, together, have exposed the bones here most sadly. Many of the bones are broken and shattered to pieces, evidently since they were unearthed. All the other scattered graves of the Confederates, where they were covered up by ones, twos, threes and so on, up to dozens in a place, over the whole field are in the same miserable condition. In but one place did I see a Confederate grave that had not been rooted up by the hogs. That was on the extreme left, where, as Mr. Hargoves informed me there are near 300 of each side buried in parallel trenches.