Dead From Helena, Ark., Battle To Be Reburied
March 20
Feb./March 2004
HELENA, Ark. - The remains of Confederate soldiers
who died at the July 4, 1863, Battle of Helena will be reburied
on March 20.
The burial will take place in the Confederate Cemetery at Maple
Hill Cemetery in Helena, near the graves of Gen. Patrick Cleburne,
who died at Franklin, Tenn., and other Helena battle casualties.
The reburial will follow the annual Cleburne memorial service,
which will be held at noon.
Roller-Citizen Funeral Home of West Helena is handling the arrangements
in conjunction with the Arkansas Division of the Sons of Confederate
Veterans. Final details will be posted at the Civil War in Arkansas
Message Board at www.history-sites.com/cgi-bin/boards/arcwmb.
According to the Arkansas Battlefield Update newsletter, based
on the location and the heavy casualties that both units took,
the remains are believed to be from the 35th Arkansas Infantry
Regiment or Hawthorne's Arkansas Regiment.
Bones from five, and possibly a sixth, body were found in a
single grave last May. The grave was discovered the previous
fall when a hunter came across skeletal remains in a wooded
area within city limits. Bone fragments that were found along
a recently bulldozes logging road were sent to the state crime
lab and then the University of Arkansas physical anthropology
laboratory.
Forensic anthropologist Brian Renfro determined they were old
human bones and that the buttons with them were from the 19th
century.
After officials visited the site in December 2002 the decision
was made to excavate the grave because the burial area was eroding.
John House, the Arkansas Archeological Survey's Station Archeologist
at University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, directed May's excavation.
Archeologists and volunteers helped with the excavation.
It appeared that the bodies were hastily buried one on top of
the other. One skeleton was face down, another on its side.
House speculated that Union troops buried the dead Confederates.
The only artifacts in the grave were 25 buttons - porcelain,
bone and tin-plated iron. None were military buttons. An unfired
musket ball was in disturbed soil near the grave.
Writing 30 years after the battle for members of the Society
of the 28th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Brig. Gen. Frederick
Salomon described how he was temporarily in charge of the Mississippi
River defenses at Helena and Fort Curtis when they got word
in early June that 20,000 Confederates were headed their way
from Little Rock. Batteries, rifle pits and obstructions to
cavalry were constructed and Union troops waited until July
4.
He wrote: "The enemy, under command of Lieut. Gen. Holmes,
with Generals Price, Marmaduke, Fagan and other Generals, intended
to make a simultaneous attack from all sides at daybreak, but
owing to the obstructions in the roads and the cutting down
of the trees they failed in it, and when they afterwards made
an energetic but disconnected attack on various points of my
line of defence, they gave me the chance to reinforce my troops
at the endangered places.
...
"They were under five different artillery crossfires; a
few minutes of thunder; a white handkerchief; cease firing;
an hour later the first lot of prisoners steamed north toward
Memphis.
"The battle was virtually over. "The next day reinforcements
came from Memphis, the enemy was pursued, but could not be overtaken."
