Seventeen thousand Civil War Union soldiers and sailors are buried here, of which 13,000 remain unknown. This is the largest National Cemetery in the United States. It occupies ground once held by Major General William T. Sherman’s men at Vicksburg. Not all of the those buried here were killed at Vicksburg. Many are reburials from battlefields elsewhere in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. While our tour group visited a nearby museum featuring a Union gunboat, I broke away in order to take advantage of a setting sun casting its light on the carpet of leaves covering the cemetery. Instead of diluting the image by attempting to photograph the massed gravestones, I use only a single gravestone to anchor my image. This stone marks the grave of an Illinois Sergeant. I use it to represent all who rest here. I layer the image by including another stone in the middle ground, representing the unidentified soldiers make up 75 per cent of the burials here. The background of this image adds critical context. We see the masses of headstones in the background, indicating the scope of this cemetery. I bring the top edge of the picture down, abstracting the huge tree dominating this background. This framing calls attention to the tree's multi-branched shadow reaching towards the two lonely graves that float upon the field of fallen leaves.