Relic Hunting on Civil War Battlefields and the Desecration of Human Remains

This is a fascinating discussion with historian Jim Broomall that was recently hosted by the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Jim is the director of the Civil War Center at Shepherd University. I highly recommend his most recent book, Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers, but his current project is focused on relic hunting on Civil War battlefields during the war.

It’s good to see Jim working on this particular project given his long-standing interest in material culture during the Civil War era.

One of the most interesting aspects of this discussion is the macabre practice of collecting human remains on battlefields. Jim does a great job of providing historical context for this practice and how it challenged prevailing notions of the “Good Death” in ninteenth-century America.

Many of you are familiar with Ken Burns’s use of the Sullivan Ballou letter—the Rhode Island soldier, who wrote home to his wife just prior to the first battle of Bull Run in which he was killed. The use of photographs of soldiers and their wives, along with the reading of the letter itself, packs a powerful emotional punch at the end of episode 1.

There are many aspects of this letter that are worth discussing, but Jim focuses in on the overwhelming evidence found in newspaper and other accounts that point to the desecration of his grave by Confederates.

Here is the clip from Burns’s documentary if you haven’t seen it or would like to refresh your memory.

This discussion is well worth your time and I look forward to reading this book at some point in the near future.