The partial remains of three Union soldiers have been buried at Fredericksburg National Cemetery. Inside their tiny casket is a trove of military buttons, a coat remnant and other items that got mixed up with their bones

May 2 burial (City of Fredericksburg), examination of burial bundle and Connecticut button (Dovetail/Mead & Hunt)

Following the Civil War, the United States government undertook an exhaustive effort to ensure a proper resting place for Union soldiers who had given the “last full measure of devotion.”

Work parties scoured battlefields, back yards, pastures and countless other places to collect 300,000 bodies that were interred at 73 national cemeteries. Remains arrived in dribs and drabs at Fredericksburg National Cemetery in Virginia between 1866 and 1868. Most came with no name: Of the 15,243 soldiers, about 85 percent are unknown.

Contractors hired by the government often retrieved skulls and larger portions of the skeleton, leaving most behind. Such was the case with three Federal soldiers buried together at a site near Sophia Street in downtown Fredericksburg. They died at a hospital set up during the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862.

Fredericksburg Superintendent Lewis Rogers at cemetery burial (City of Fredericksburg)

Ten years after the discovery of the partial remains, the men were rendered full honors on May 2 when a small casket holding leg, toe, finger and other bones was buried at the national cemetery.

Among those on hand were Mayor Kerry Devine, members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and Lewis Rogers, superintendent of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. Assisting the reburial effort was the Missing in America Project.

“The placement of these remains closes an important and long journey for these men. They left home at a young age to fight for a cause they believed in, only to lose their lives hundreds of miles from home,” said Kerri Barile Tambs, senior practice lead at Dovetail Cultural Resource Group, which was hired by the city to conduct archaeological examinations during the Riverfront Park project and studied the bones.

There’s another fascinating aspect of the story: Barile Tambs (left) and other Dovetail staffers analyzed a “bundle” found with the men's remaining bones. The jumble of items included fabric from a uniform, military buttons, a pack of straight pins and a small bottle. They were likely kept in pants pockets.

Among the uniform buttons was one denoting Connecticut.

“The three individuals were buried as they died -- wearing their uniforms. By the time people came back … to remove parts of the burials, partial decomposition had occurred,” said Barile Tambs.

“These workers removed some of the bones but left others jumbled together. In the process, it appears that the coat of one of the soldiers was dislodged from the bones, ‘balled up,’ and put back in the hole with the bones they left behind.”

14th Connecticut, other units used house as hospital

A November 2015 article by The Free Lance-Star newspaper detailed the find near the Rowe-Goolrick house, which was constructed in the 1750s to face onto one of Fredericksburg's original ferry roads (and thus was perpendicular to Sophia Street).

The discovery was made after a Masonic hall next to the Rowe-Goolrick house site was torn down to make room for Riverfront Park and city officials called Dovetail in to study the site.

Bright green area is where the human remains were found in 2015 (NPS image)

Dovetail performed archaeological work and archival studies in the area four times between 2013 and 2019. The team located thousands of artifacts spanning from the precontact period through the 1970s.

A 2019 blog post on the Dovetail website details the discovery of several building foundations during the effort.

The Rowe-Goolrick house  was demolished in 1973 to make room for a parking lot that is now part of the park along the Rappahannock River. A fascinating 1863 photograph of the city shows the Rowe-Goolrick house. It was then the home of Absalom Rowe, a cattleman and future mayor of the town. Near it was the Eliza Eubank home, also shown in the picture. It still survives and may be the oldest building in Fredericksburg (circa 1746).

Wartime image of the town, shows Rowe-Goolrick home at right foreground, 
facing the Eliza Eubank home at left (Library of Congress)

A recent National Park Service page about the discovery of the burial site in town said the 14^th Connecticut Infantry used the Rowe-Goolrick house, outbuildings and grounds as a hospital.

Second Lt. Charles Lyman of the regiment wrote about witnessing a leg amputation on a soldier placed on a “rude operating table under a big buttonball tree in the yard.”

The NPS said the remains of the three soldiers showed no evidence of amputations.

Archaeologists determined the remains belonged to U.S. soldiers by using radiocarbon dating and the context in which they were found and associated artifacts, including uniform buttons, according to the city.

More about 113 items found in the 'bundle'

Barile Tambs told the Picket in an email the bundle was about 2-3 feet below the surface in what appeared to be a root cellar.

The NPS page provides these details about what her team found:

Straight pins were found among the jumble of material (Dovetail/Mead & Hunt)

“The X-ray revealed a total of 113 artifacts in the small bundle. These materials included eagle buttons, a small patent medicine bottle, straight pins, a pocket watch key, a small horsehair brush, and a cuff-size Connecticut button. The identification of the Connecticut button was especially significant because the 14th Connecticut was the only Connecticut unit in the 3rd Division at the Battle of Fredericksburg, providing additional information as to the potential troops who occupied the site.”

Dovetail – now a part of Mead & Hunt -- does not know anything about the straight pins. The bottle (right, photo Dovetail/Mead & Hunt) is believed to have contained a patent medicine most likely used to treat syphilis. The piece of cloth measured maybe 8 inches by 5 inches.

The archaeologist said the disturbance of the first grave near the Rowe-Goolrick house made it difficult to understand how the men were buried.

“The parts that were left behind were dislodged and jumbled thus no longer representing a standard skeletal position,” Barile Tambs said. “As such, we can't say much on the exact original configuration of the burials at the time of death -- we only have evidence that was left behind … during the partial removal process.”

Full honors for soldiers 160 years later

Fredericksburg National Cemetery sits on Marye’s Heights, a strategic area located southwest of the town’s historic downtown. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate troops held the high terrain and successfully repelled numerous Union attacks.

Before this month, the last burial of a soldier or veteran there was in 1945. Subsequent burials were spouses. The cemetery has been officially closed to interments since 2010.

Eagle buttons found amid bones, other artifacts in city of Fredericksburg (Dovetail/Mead & Hunt)

The city asked the NPS to bury the remains in 2017, with the need to find a location at the cemetery that had no evidence of a previous interment. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources also was consulted.

The Covid pandemic slowed the project. A 2021 effort to find a suitable plot came to a stop when archaeologists found a long-covered road and brick-lined culvert. A new location was found two years later.

“This 10-year process established protocols should other Civil War remains be found in the area to expedite the respectful reburial of these brave individuals,” Barile Tambs told the Picket. 

Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and dignitaries at service (City of Fredericksburg)

The May 2 ceremony included a dozen members of the SUVCW, including a color guard.

According to the city, the National Cemetery Administration has provided the headstone, which will match others in the cemetery and include the epitaph “Unknown.” Given the soldiers are unknown, officials do not where the first part of their remains were interred in the 1860s.

I asked Barile Tambs what became of the bundle.

“It has all been reburied with the remains. They are all grave goods,” she wrote.