Wasted Valor

The Battle of Gettysburg was responsible for the deaths of between 4,500 and 5,000 Confederate soldiers. In rank from general through private, most of these men were struck down in the prime of their life at the average age of only twenty-four! This book details the interesting but somber story of a very tragic portion of that battle, and addresses the following topics: * The initial first-hand descriptions of the festering battlefield, including sights of the rapidly decomposing corpses. * A summary of the early incomplete burials of thousands of battlefield and field hospital casualties. * Later visitors' accounts of rain-washed, open graves and the scattered bones of the Confederate dead. * Specific recollections of how the bodies were buried and how graves were marked. * A list of 150 Confederates and their actual burial places in the Gettysburg area. * A section of over 120 burial locations on farms or elsewhere and 300 sub-categories which pinpoint the graves within these main burial areas. * Six maps which guide the visitors to the actual grave sites, and over 80 photographs of burial locations and Southerners killed in the battle. * The story of the removal of over 3,000 Confederate remains to final interment in the South in 1871 to 1873. * Biographies of 50 Southern soldiers in rank from private to general officer, which documents their last moments on earth. * Post-war discoveries of forgotten graves in the Gettysburg area from 1875 to 1945.