Jubal Anderson Early, Ruth Hairston Early, Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early , C. S. A.

On one occasion, a very worthy chaplain in our army on riding over a battlefield found a soldier pulling the shoes from the feet of a dead Federal soldier, and this being new to him, his feelings were rather shocked. Speaking to the soldier he said: “My friend, if I were in your place, I would have more respect for the dead, and not do that.” The soldier, looking at the comfortable pair of boots which the chaplain by good luck was able to sport, said: “Sir, I have as much respect for the dead as you or any other man, but if you had marched as long as I have without any shoes, and your feet were as sore as mine, you would not think it so wrong to take these shoes which can't do this man any good now, and will do me a great deal.” The chaplain was silenced, and that was the whole question in a few words.

As to the other part of the charge, about disfiguring the bodies, I do not presume our enemies themselves believe it, though it was their policy to show that we were barbarous, and this was set forth in the report of a Congressional Committee. I was on many battlefields beginning with first Manassas, both during and after the battles, and I slept on some, with the enemy's dead lying all around me. I never in a solitary case saw any evidence of any such treatment, and I never heard of any except from the reports put in circulation.

As I have passed along over the ground when we were fighting I have had some of the wounded appeal to me, saying they were informed by their officers that we killed all the wounded, and I have ordered them to be carried off and cared for. It was the policy to circulate such reports in regard to the treatment of prisoners, the wounded, and the dead, not only to inflame the minds of the Northern people in order to induce them to give a hearty support to the war, but to make the soldiers in the army fight more obstinately; and there were not wanting witnesses to aid the authorities by their testimony.