The John Crawford farm, tenanted in part by Basil Biggs, ended up with a large number of Confederate burials because of its location directly behind the southern battle lines on July 2–3, 1863. When Longstreet’s assault surged through the Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, and toward Cemetery Ridge, thousands of Confederate casualties fell in that sector. McLaws’s Division in particular—Barksdale’s Mississippians and Semmes’s Georgians—suffered grievous losses. Surgeons needed an immediate hospital site just off the battlefield, and the sturdy stone house and barn on Crawford’s property along Marsh Creek were commandeered. Wounded men streamed into the farm, where dining rooms became operating tables and outbuildings filled with stretcher cases. Many succumbed to their wounds despite treatment. With little time or resources, burial parties dug shallow graves in the farmyard and fields, interring dozens of Confederates where they died.

Another reason so many Confederates were buried there is that Union authorities took no responsibility for the enemy dead. The Union focused on collecting and reinterring its own soldiers in the new Soldiers’ National Cemetery; Confederate remains were left in situ. Thus, farms like Crawford’s bore the burden of Confederate graves for nearly a decade. In 1872–73, Southern reburial organizations disinterred those bodies and carried them to cemeteries in Virginia and other Confederate states. But until then, the Crawford farm remained a Confederate cemetery, with an estimated 40–50 men buried on its grounds. This macabre legacy left scars on the land and shaped how both the Crawford family and tenant Basil Biggs experienced the war’s aftermath.

As with other burial pages (Plank, Bream, Codori, Bushman, Rose, Biggs), Find-a-Grave links are included where known.

Most men killed in the Civil War were younger than 25 and had no spouse or children. Hence, today, few of them have direct descendants to keep their memories alive. We encourage you to visit some of these pages and get to know some of the men.