Lee Requests A Favor From Grant and the body of Captain Robert Beale Davis is moved between the lines
Grant Gates, retired Chief of Interpretation at Petersburg National Battlefield, pointed out that this drawing by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly artist Joseph Becker depicted a wooden headboard with a legible name- Captain Davis of a Virginia regiment, seemingly the 48th. Who was Captain Davis? There was no officer of that name in the 48th Virginia. This was likely the original battlefield grave of Captain Robert Beale Davis of the 40th Virginia, as revealed in the correspondence below in the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Davis was killed on October 1, 1864, during the battle of Peebles farm.
A View of Our New Picket Line (Battle of Poplar Springs - Peeble's Farm)
Verso: "View of our new line of works on the right and center looking [out on] our picket line // 1 Squirrel level road [upper left] 2 Rebel fort and intrenchments [sic] captured on Friday the 29th Sept 3 Peebles house and farm 4 Rebel fort and line of works captured in the charge made by the 5th Corps on Friday // Sketched Oct 11th 64 // [Signed] J.B [Joseph Becker]." Becker Collection, Boston College.
https://beckercollection.bc.edu/items/show/3012
This detail from the drawing above shows a grave marker with the words "CAPT DAVIS 48th VIRGINIA , [illegible]".
In many cases bodies were recovered from the battlefield by enemy burial groups under a flag of truce, but this didn't always happen. Davis's family and friends were lucky that his grave was marked, perhaps by his own men, and that Lee was willing to intervene and Grant facilitated the exhumation. Parties were not to enter the enemy's lines for even the gravest purposes.
From The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, November 16, 1864-February 20, 1865;
By Ulysses Simpson Grant, John Y. Simon. ed.· 1985: 211-213.
Captain Davis was buried a few miles away from his place of death at Blandford Cemetery.
Captain Robert Beale Davis grave in Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg. After his name it reads "Son of Reverend and Mrs. Davis, Born Feb 18, 1835, Killed in battle while in command of 40 Reg. of Va Vol, Oct 1, 1864. Photograph from Find-a-Grave.
