Photo by John Reekie, compiled by Hirst D. Millhollen and Donald H. Mugridge.
“Cold Harbor, Virginia. African Americans collecting bones of soldiers killed in battle, 1865.”
When a soldier died in the Civil War, what happened to his body? As if the grief associated with a son’s death weren't difficult enough, a soldier’s family was typically responsible for retrieval of his body if they hoped to give him a decent burial at home, rather than under unfamiliar sod miles away.
The challenges of transporting the dead were especially difficult in the semi-tropical climes of Louisiana, where disease ran rampant. In the spring of 1862, when the Union forces navigated down the Mississippi, occupying New Orleans and its environs, their troops began to suffer high mortality rates, more from disease than even in battle.
In order to preserve these soldiers’ bodies long enough to get them home for burial, families sought out the services of undertakers, such as William Robertson Bell. Born in Scotland in 1814, Bell immigrated to New Orleans sometime in the 1830s and opened a livery stable. Though it is unknown where Bell received his early training in embalming, by 1854, he was in the undertaking business. When the Union forces arrived, he was well-positioned in the business of cadavers, already having the horses and carriages needed to transport bodies and host funerals.
During the war, as thousands were dying, coffins became a crucial commodity. According to Bell’s invoices, most of the caskets he purchased were from Boston merchants, Peak and Pinkham. They had an unusual sales pitch touting their caskets as “particularly adapted to the conveyance of the bodies from the seat of war.”
"As Bell was just starting an incision at the brachial artery, a man 'came back to life.' Two days later, he was back at his workplace none the worse. This was better than any paid advertising."
Bell and his colleague, William Phillips, didn’t work only in New Orleans, but also serviced bodies throughout Louisiana—often ferreting out the remains of soldiers in unidentified graves dug haphazardly after a battle. Letters about a young soldier’s death and the location of his burial might be the closest a family ever got to ever receiving their loved one’s remains.
A case in point was that of Sargent P. William Hadley. A letter sent from depot quartermaster clerk, Dominque Pochelu, at Brashear City, Louisiana on March 23, 1864, outlined the challenges faced in finding and identifying his body. According to hospital records, Hadley was originally interred on Warford Island, along with hundreds of other unidentified corpses. Because the graves were unmarked, that’s where the trail ended. In another case, the body of a Union cavalry trooper from Camp Parapet would also lie undiscovered where he was interred at the burial ground of the hospital that treated him. In 1863, a South Carolina mother summed up a loss that never received the benefit of closure; it was “much more painful,” to give up a “loved one [who] is a stranger in a strange land.”
William R. Bell (ca. 1814–1874) New Orleans undertaker and livery stable owner. William R. Bell Papers, mss 2117, 2118, Louisiana and Lower MS Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, LA.
The bulk of orders Bell received to retrieve and transport bodies were from New England and New York families; most of these were commissioned through his agents in New York, Minett & Co. He also received a lesser number from those contacting him directly. Bell’s advertising for his undertaking business ran in New Orleans newspapers. But on at least one occasion, he received a free endorsement when The Times-Picayune's August 17, 1864 edition indirectly touted a compelling reason for embalming a loved one: to ensure the soldier was actually deceased before burial. In the article, a deceased Black man, “Martin,” was brought to Bell’s undertaking establishment on Carondelet Street for the purpose of embalming. As Bell was just starting an incision at the brachial artery, Martin “came back to life.” Two days later, he was back at his workplace none the worse. This was better than any paid advertising. But another point not wasted on local readers was that Bell also served the Black community, a fact supported by a letter from the Corps d’Afrique Hospital dated August 25, 1864, stating that he would receive payment for his funeral services for two Black soldiers, M.D. Talbot and P. Goudin.
"Embalming bodies or—when too decomposed—pickling them in alcohol, and sealing them in impregnable metallic coffins, turned out to be big business."
The shipping of bodies north to New York or New England by steamer was a straightforward undertaking in Civil War New Orleans, but for families in the Midwest, it was a longer and more costly journey. It wasn’t until July 4, 1863, with the capture of Vicksburg, that the Union gained complete control of the Mississippi River. But even in Union hands, part of the river, with its shifting sandbars, was at times a terror to navigate, leaving many coffins to be shipped to New York, and then overland by railroad or freight wagon to their destinations in the Midwest. Embalming bodies or—when too decomposed—pickling them in alcohol, and sealing them in impregnable metallic coffins, turned out to be big business. By 1863, the cost skyrocketed from the early war price of $50 to Bell’s standard fees ranging from $75 to $125 in Louisiana (equal to around $2,000 or more, today). The price of dying had become more costly.
[Read this: "The Best We Could—How disease killed the Civil War soldiers, even more than the guns" ]
What’s more, much could go wrong in the process of disinterring and transporting soldiers’ bodies. Sometimes, remains didn’t arrive when scheduled, as was the case when the steamer Mississippi pulled into port without the body of Thaddeus Weems. On another occasion, the Mississippi scheduled to ship coffins was instead ordered to transport troops to the front. Bodies sealed in their airtight metallic coffins might hang around one’s mortuary shop for months, or even years, for a number of reasons: the deceased soldier’s family had not the funds to pay for the body’s release, or a loved one simply had lost interest in shipping a body home. Such was the case of a Union captain who, after two years, was still taking up space in Bell’s shop. In this instance, the captain’s widow had found a new beau and had no interest in claiming the remains of her former one.
Despite the agonizing waits and high costs associated with disinterring, preparing bodies, and shipping them home, bereaved loved ones held Bell in high regard, and expressed great warmth towards him, often offering open invitations to their homes.
William R. Bell died in 1874. The correspondence left behind reveals the significant impact he and his work held in Civil War-era New Orleans. The words penned in the letters and invoices of his archive present a new perspective on the challenges faced by the Civil War undertakers as they worked to prepare the dead for their rightful final resting places.
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