Note: The following discusses and lists the known Confederate burials on the Francis Bream farm. The average age of men killed at Gettysburg was between 23 and 24. Accordingly, most of the killed were unmarried and childless. Of course, today, those men do not have direct lineal descendants, and very few people retain any remembrance of them. We encourage you to click a few of the links and discover some of the stories, where known, of these men and others who died without descendants.

One of the larger concentrations of Confederate burials was found on the Francis Bream farm because of its unique location and the role it played during and after the fighting on July 2, 1863. Its volume of burials was similar to that of the John Edward Plank farm though fewer than the number found on the Rose farm. The Black Horse Tavern property sat directly behind the Confederate lines on the Army of Northern Virginia’s right flank.

When Longstreet’s Corps moved into position for its massive assault on the Union left that afternoon, thousands of troops—especially Kershaw’s South Carolina Brigade—passed by or halted on Bream’s land. Once the attack was underway, the Fairfield Road and the lanes leading to Bream’s buildings became natural return routes for the wounded, since they were out of immediate Union artillery range and close enough to the front to allow quick evacuation from the Wheatfield, Devil’s Den, and the Emmitsburg Road sector.

The tavern and its outbuildings were pressed into service as a Confederate field hospital almost immediately after the fighting began. Surgeons from Kershaw’s Brigade and possibly other units set up operating tables inside the stone tavern and in the barn. Badly wounded men who could not be moved farther to the rear were left at Bream’s for days, and the flow of casualties continued into the night of July 2. Because of the severity of many wounds, a significant number died on the property itself, and wartime medical practice dictated that such men be buried nearby as quickly as possible—often within hours of death—to avoid the health hazards of decomposing bodies in hot July weather.

In addition, the Bream farm’s role as a hospital extended well beyond the immediate battle. After the Confederate retreat began on July 4, those too injured to travel were left in Union hands at the tavern site. Some lingered for days or weeks, dying under Federal medical care in the same buildings where they had first been treated. By that time, the site already contained multiple fresh graves from July 2–3, and new burials were simply added alongside them. The choice to inter bodies on-site rather than transport them into town cemeteries reflected both the urgency of battlefield conditions and the status of these men as enemy soldiers; local burial parties concentrated Confederate dead in field graves rather than in the borough’s graveyards.

Finally, the concentration of graves at Bream’s reflects the broader geography of Confederate burial patterns around Gettysburg. Southern dead were most often buried where they fell or where they were treated—clustered at farms, churches, and crossroads that became temporary hospitals. The Black Horse Tavern was one of the largest such sites on the Confederate right, with more than thirty recorded interments. Its combination of accessibility from the front, substantial shelter, and relatively open land for digging graves made it a natural place for a burial ground. Those graves remained on the property for nearly a decade before being removed to Southern cemeteries in the 1870s, leaving behind a strong historical association between the Bream farm and the Confederate dead.

Though the actual number of burials was probably higher, the following are those who were identified. Find-a-Grave links are given where known.