The act of burying Union dead in Lee's backyard sh** on two parties. Lee, and the Southern cause was one, two, the Union soldiers being the other. At that time Virginia represented the South and to be buried in Southern soil would have been (and still is) a great insult to a yankee boy. Union soldiers were buried in the land of the enemy, abandoned by their government AND their families they had so loyally served. Confederate soldiers, OTH, WERE buried in the South; Hollywood in Richmond and other cemeteries physically located throughout the South.

Yankee families were told that by burying their native sons in Southern soil they would be contributing to the beginning of a great national cemetery; a story they bought hook, line and sinker. Southerners had no desire for a national cemetery in their own backyard. Therefore the Union dead buried there were not accepted by Southerners. Still aren't. More of "MY will be done and to he** with your desires" type action.

Their government saw to it that their souls were reclaimed from their resting place in eternity; instead their bodies were to become a reminder that the body politic and the nation came first.

The foregoing paragraph is not my idea; I just copied an hour long television show produced by PBS "American Experience - Death and the Civil War". I suggest if you have the opportunity to carefully view it because they make my case.