Dead soldiers at Gettysburg. The extent of bodies buried at the site has spawned rumors of ghost sightings.
Accounts from survivors paint a vivid scene of horror, like this recollection from a New Jersey soldier:
“Some with faces bloated and blackened beyond recognition, lay with glassy eyes staring up at the blazing summer sun; others, with faces downward and clenched hands filled with grass or earth, which told of the agony of the last moments… Here, a headless trunk, there, a severed limb; in all the grotesque positions that unbearable pain and intense suffering contorts the human form, they lay.”
The number of bodies was said to have reeked. The stench of corpses — both of men and horses — that had baked in the sun-filled air. Some 3,000 horse carcasses had to be burned, and they reportedly caused the townsfolk to grow ill from the stench. Simple burials were done quickly between the fighting in order to quell the odor, but the efforts could not keep up with the death count.
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