Archaeology students find likely evidence of a brief cavalry skirmish in southern Georgia during Sherman's March to the Sea

A Spencer repeating rifle casing and a toe tap with nails found during recent
excavation near Millen, Ga. (Courtesy of Camp Lawton Archaeological Project)

Archaeology students at a Georgia university have found artifacts that might derive from a skirmish between Union and Confederate cavalry during Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea.

Ryan McNutt, assistant professor of historical archaeology at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, said recent field work yielded fired casings from a Spencer repeating rifle and from a likely Allen & Wheelock .32 Rim fire side hammer revolver, a fired percussion cap, toe caps from footwear and a bridle rosette that matches types used by Union cavalry.

McNutt heads up the school’s Camp Lawton Archaeological Project, which for several years has been researching the remains of a Confederate prison camp that was in operation for several weeks in fall 1864.

In 2020, the university was awarded a $116,247 grant from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program to document and evaluate the archaeological integrity of two skirmish sites near the end of Sherman's campaign in Georgia: Buck Head Creek and Lawton (Lumpkin's) Station.

“Both of these conflicts occurred as the Confederacy attempted to tactically slow, or at least constrain, Sherman’s inexorable approach to southeast Georgia,” McNutt wrote in an email to the Picket.

Round believed to be from .32-caliber rimfire revolver (Camp Lawton Project)

The artifacts were found in the past month near the site of Lawton Station, a Dec. 4 clash that followed fighting at Buck Head Creek. Lawton Station had served the prison camp, which closed a few weeks before these skirmishes.

The Battle of Buck Head Creek on November 28, 1864, involved U.S. Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s and Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler’s cavalry forces. It took place across what are now Jenkins and Burke counties, a fighting Union withdrawal north from the area around the still-standing Buck Head Creek Church, through Reynold’s Plantation across the course of a day and over approximately three miles of period roads, McNutt said.

Kilpatrick was in the area to destroy railroad between August and Millen and burn a trestle. Another objective was to release the Camp Lawton prisoners, but Union forces discovered they had been moved to other sites. Federal forces were able to destroy a mile of track.

Gens. Judson Kilpatrick and Joseph Wheeler

On the 28^th, Wheeler “almost captured Kilpatrick, and pursued him and his men to Buck Head Creek. As Kilpatrick's main force crossed the creek, one regiment, supported by artillery, fought a rearguard action severely punishing Wheeler and then burned the bridge behind them,” says a National Park Service summary of the fighting. “Wheeler soon crossed and followed, but a Union brigade behind barricades at Reynolds's Plantation halted the Rebels' drive, eventually forcing them to retire.”

The main body of Sherman’s army, notably the 14^th and 20^th corps, approached Millen days later and engaged with Rebel cavalry.

According to McNutt, Capt. S.P. Dobbs and the 9^th Alabama Cavalry burned a bridge at Buck Head Creek Church and fell back to Lawton Station, “where they sheltered under fire for a period before withdrawing into Screven County toward Beaver Dam Creek.” (Lawton Station/Depot is where Federal prisoners were brought to the POW camp a couple months before.)

Front and back of bridle rosette (Camp Lawton Project)

The professor believes some of the Lawton Station fighting occurred with the boundaries of Magnolia Springs State Park, meaning it is protected. Much of the prison site, particularly the section where the guards lived, is inside the park. The Union prisoners lived in an area that is now federal property.

Georgia Southern students used Lidar, a remote sensing method, at the Lawton Station area and will do so again when they get to Buck Head Creek this summer. The aim of the project is to document any surviving above-ground indications of Lawton Station, field fortifications from Buck Head Creek, and historic roads, structures, houses, bridges that would have been used by both Confederate and Union forces throughout both battlefields.

McNutt believes the Lidar found what is believed to be the site of Lawton Station.

Students used metal detectors on an old road that went from the station, past Confederate barracks and the stockade to a larger road that goes north toward Augusta. This is where the artifacts were found.

“This would have been the retreat route of Captain Dobb's Confederate regiment, and the (pursuit) route of the Union cavalry,” McNutt wrote.

POW Robert Knox Sneden's map of prison (Library of Congress)

Beyond the artifacts mentioned above, the project found at Lawton Station “material culture remnants that are more ambiguous, but might be Union in origin.” That includes bits of saddlery and horse tack elements, “implying a greater presence of horse-mounted troops than were stationed at Lawton by the Confederates when it was operating as a prison camp,” McNutt said.

“These are all tantalizing bits of material culture that suggest we're looking at an edge of the skirmish, or at least an area where Union forces were firing at something or someone further along the road. As we progress through the spring field school, we'll fill this picture in more as we finish our search grid, and move up the road to investigate with another systematic metal detector survey the site of Lawton Station itself.”

McNutt concedes there is commingling of artifacts from the operation of the prison camp and the December skirmish. The survey has taken place on the edge of Rebel barracks and what may be an open parade ground.

“But the Spencer and .32-cal rimfire round are really only going to come from Union cavalry, given the Confederacy's inability to manufacture cased ammunition, especially with the copper shortage. I'm pretty confident in saying at a minimum, the Spencer and the .32 round are specific to some kind of engagement, and the bridle rosette is likely to come from that as well.”

“We have a few other ferrous items that I need to investigate in more detail, but a few are potential gun furniture, and there is a possible carbine sling bolt. So in short, there is some comingling, but these items range from being certainly not Confederate in origin, to being ambiguous, and possibly Confederate or Union.”

The professor said Kilpatrick sent troopers to Lawton in late November, but a major did not report any fighting. “I suspect given as deep as they were in Wheeler's turf, with extended (and uncertain) supply lines, conservation of ammunition would have been enforced, so they're unlikely to have just rode into the barracks area guns blazing.

“The more likely possibility is that these are items from that December cavalry skirmish -- but we need more information to be sure, and hopefully we'll know more as we finish up our search area.”

(At left is an adjustable buckle found by metal detector.)

In the meantime, the Camp Lawton Archaeological Project is contacting landowners in the area of Buck Head Creek to obtain permission to do field work there in the summer.

This field work will continue into 2022. McNutt says landowners, anyone interested in volunteering and those who might have collections of artifacts and would like him to take a look should contact him at rmcnutt@georgiasouthern.edu.