Graveyard in the Camp.
The picture we publish on this page represents a graveyard near Falmouth, Virginia, and immediately contiguous to the soldiers’ tents. One would think that such a view must tutor the hearts of our gallant fellows to a sepulchral gloom; but a soldier’s experience has rubbed that fine sentimental and womanly enamel from their hearts , and they stand ready to take their places in the same spot at the call of duty.
Our Artist says: “I send an exact sketch of a graveyard in camp. It is very remarkable to a stranger, when first visiting the army, to notice the proximity of the burial grounds to the tents of the soldiers. Sometimes, as in the present instance, it is close beside the encampment; sometimes on the slope of a hill among the pine stumps, the grim remains of a lordly forest. A friend’s, perhaps a brother’s hand is seen in the homely decoration on the grave – a piece of a cedar or a pine bough planted at the head, and a few of the poles placed around, are all that show where a patriot warrior takes his last sleep.”
(Published in the March 21, 1863 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.)
