From the Richmond Dispatch, 1/8/1863, p. 1, c. 5

Horrible Desecration. – For some weeks a number of boys from the city have visited the battle-field of Seven Pines, and there prized dead bodies from their graves and stripped them of their cartridge boxes to obtain the bullets therein and sold them as old lead. Many of these were the bodies of our own men, whose graves had been marked by friends that intended to carry them home during the winter. The head boards the only clue to recognition have been displaced, and the bodies, in many instances, left exposed. We call the attention of the commanding officers of the Department of Richmond to this outrage, with the hope that some measure may be taken to put a stop to it.

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