Archaeologists in Virginia were excavating the grounds of a building that stored gunpowder during the American Revolution when they uncovered the eye sockets of a human skull. The team carefully unearthed four skeletons, including one with a bullet in the spine, and three amputated legs. They quickly surmised the bones were actually from the Civil War, when a makeshift hospital operated nearby and treated gravely wounded Confederate soldiers. The archaeologists work at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a museum that owns the land and focuses on the city's 18th century history. They're now trying to identify human remains from the 19th century, a rare endeavor that will include searching for living descendants and requesting swabs of DNA, the AP reports.
The museum has recovered enough genetic material from the men's teeth for possible matches. But the prospect of identifying them emerged only after the team located handwritten lists in an archive that named the soldiers in that hospital. "It is the key," says Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology. "If these men were found in a mass grave on a battlefield, and there was no other information, we probably wouldn't be trying to do this." The archaeologists have narrowed the possible identities to four men who served in regiments from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. The museum is withholding the names as the work continues.
Meanwhile, the remains were reinterred Tuesday at a Williamsburg cemetery where Confederate soldiers from the same battle are buried. "Everyone deserves dignity in death," Gary said. "And being stored in a drawer inside a laboratory does not do that."
- The soldiers fought in the Battle of Williamsburg, a bloody engagement on May 5, 1862. Roughly 14,600 Union soldiers fought about 12,500 Confederates, Carol Kettenburg Dubbs wrote in her 2002 book, Defend This Old Town. The number of Union soldiers killed, wounded, captured, or missing was 2,283. The Confederate figure was 1,870.
- The men were not in uniform, says Eric Schweickart, a staff archaeologist. Some were in more comfortable clothes, based on artifacts that included buttons and a trouser buckle. One soldier had two $5 gold coins from 1852. Another had a toothbrush made of animal bone and a snuff bottle, used for sniffing tobacco.
- William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology examined the remains and estimated their ages. The youngest was between 15 and 19, the oldest between 35 and 55. The estimates helped match names to enlistment records, census data, and Union prisoner of war documents.
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