History of Antietam National Cemetery (page 11)

their inestimable services in this behalf, to which the merit of their work so justly entitles them. The signal services rendered by them were of such a character as to relieve this portion of the work of a great insurmountable burden under a different state of circumstances. The difficulties besetting them in the discovery of the names of the deceased were frequently solved by letters, receipts, diaries, memorandum books, photographs, or marks on the belts or cartridge boxes. Sometimes a soiled and crumpled letter found on the body, its characters scarcely decipherable on the well-worn and tear-stained page, would indicate the name, or the torn shred of an old handkerchief, or a ragged piece of garment on which had been wrought, by loving ones at home, the name of the departed. At other times the name of the dead was ascertained by diligent inquiry among his surviving comrades, by personal inspection on their part, or by the general description of his appearance and features, or by some well known scar which marked him. Many and diversified were the ways and means resorted to for identification, and it is astonishing with what success and certainty, in most instances. Many are the sad and bereaved hearts which have been consoled by the discovery, in the prosecution of this work of a father, husband, brother or son, for some tidings of whose fate the anxious and affectionate members of the household had hitherto waited in vain, until "hope deferred had made the heart sick," but which have now, through the employment of this instrumentality, found the certainty of rest which knowledge gives.

The Board therefore authorized the President to employ Mr. Good, one of these gentlemen, to complete the list which he had commenced, by going over the battle-field and making careful notes of all the information he could obtain, admonishing him at the same time to be as accurate as circumstances would justify or permit.

Under the provisions of this last named Act, it was, among other things, provided, that the grounds so purchased as aforesaid, were to be held by the State of Maryland, in fee simple