James L. Coffee’s grave marker.Photo by Mike Bogoslawski via Findagrave
While visiting the cemetery for the first time, something seemed out of place. Being a family plot, the graves were all marked with elaborate headstones, except for one. The other particular thing about this grave was that instead of being buried with the family in the main area, it is off to the side, nearly in a corner. It was like the grave didn't belong there.
While researching I came across a very informative page by Peter Glyver, written in 2015. Mr. Glyver has extensive information on the graveyard, including being kind enough to provide the layout of the tombstones by numbers, and a numbered list of the people buried there.
He made an intriguing observation that I agreed with and decided to delve further into.
“There is one irregular grave included in the cemetery. It is of Private James L Coffee, late of the 24th Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment. His unit fought on the Sunken Road located immediately downhill from his final resting place. It is a curious point of history as to why his is the only non-“family” grave. He served in Company E of the 24th Georgia. Certainly, there were other Confederate defenders who died that day defending Marye’s Heights. Some of them died much closer to the spot where he is buried.”
Aftermath of the First Battle of Fredericksburg
It is important to try to understand the mental state people were in directly after the battle, and the horror they were experiencing. Overnight men lay on the battlefield, screaming, crying, and dying. That noise alone likely created an extreme amount of psychological trauma for anyone in earshot.
Soldiers suffered horrendous injuries, many resulting in amputations in an attempt to save their lives. As the temperature plummeted during the night, dead bodies were stripped of their clothing, even sometimes their underwear, by soldiers desperate to remain warm.
It didn't seem that the dead fared much better. It was stated by officers and locals, that the burials were rushed and crude.
Accounts came of graves too shallow, with body parts left sticking out of the ground. Dogs would bring home limbs they had torn from the rotting bodies. Some corpses were left where they were, remaining untouched even into the next year.
“Once they reached the plain, the Union burial party fanned out and began gathering up the corpses for burial. It was a gruesome task. “They were literally pieces of men, for those destructive shells had done their perfect work,” wrote one soldier. ‘It was the worst sight I ever beheld, and may I be spared another such a scene.'”
– ‘Burying the Dead at Fredericksburg’.
Major Johann Heinrich August Heros von Borcke, a Prussian officer on the Confederate side,
wrote of the experience and his complete horror of the treatment of the deceased.
“On the battlefield was an icehouse with a deep pit. As Von Borcke looked on, Northern soldiers tossed corpses into the hole “until the solid mass of human flesh reached near the surface, when a covering of logs, chalk, and mud closed the mouth of this vast and awful tomb.”
– ‘Burying the Dead at Fredericksburg’.
When it rained, the bones came to the surface, causing such a commotion that conditions were reported to officials in Washington, and in July 1865 when the Civil War ended, “the War Department established Fredericksburg National Cemetery on Marye’s Heights”. Its care was transferred to the National Park Service in 1933. To say conditions were hell would be an understatement. This information also brings up the point, why wasn’t the individual buried in a mass grave like the others?
Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park gives us some insight on its website;
"As night fell the battle lapsed into a fitful quiet. for the next few days, Confederate sharpshooters took advantage of the buildings on Willis Hill to snipe at Federals concentrating on the western edge of Fredericksburg. A Georgia infantryman availed himself of the Willis Cemetery to bury a comrade who had died fighting at the stone wall. A rough stone still stands bearing the simple legend: "______ Coffee, Co. E, 24th Georgia." ...
Who was James L. Coffee?
Originally I didn’t have a name to go off of as it is difficult to read the gravestone, likely having eroded from time.
I found the individual's name from Mr. Glyver's website, and a comment on findagrave.com via the Willis family.
Under the entry for James. L. Coffee was a comment left by user Heather (#47318464), saying “This is James Coffee a sharpshooter from the Civil War“.
Both websites confirmed the name of the individual as James L. Coffee.Breaking down the inscription on the grave marker translated to-
James L. Coffee.
Company E
24th Regiment of Georgia.
Now, I had information to begin to research.
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