Civil War soldiers in Fort Collins mass grave identified
Erin Udell , erinudell@coloradoan.com 5 p.m. MDT November 3, 2016
W. W. Westfall was a hospital steward with the 13th Regiment, Missouri Infantry, and had only been in Northern Colorado for a few months when he got sick caring for the sick at Camp Collins.
He died, like many other soldiers of the Civil War military post situated in what is now present-day Fort Collins, as a young man far from home. And he's one of the lucky ones.
Westfall is one of only two Camp Collins soldiers buried in Grandview with a headstone. The other is Robert C. Ayers of the 21st New York Cavalry Regiment. But next to their small stone markers in the southeastern corner of Grandview's soldier section is a mass grave of five other unknown Camp Collins soldiers.
Read More At: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/life/2016/11/03/civil-war-soldiers-mass-grave-fort-collins/93172836/
To me, it sounds like these soldiers died of illness; I think stats on the civil war say a lot of those who died, died of disease.
So, when one hears about "mass graves"; mayhem often comes to mind; but I don't believe that is what we are dealing with here. The story doesn't make that clear however, it sounds like Union soldiers went there to recuperate and for sickness.
