As four Confederate soldiers are reburied in Williamsburg, archaeologists try to positively ID them through DNA testing and searches of records

The final resting place for four soldiers at Cedar Grove Cemetery (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Archaeologists at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia have recovered DNA from the remains of four Confederate soldiers uncovered two years ago and hope to use that material and hospital and other records to positively identify them, officials said last week.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation last week shared an update with local media and the Associated Press. The Picket previously wrote about the discovery of the bodies near the site’s powder magazine.

The archaeologists have narrowed the possible identities to four men who served in regiments from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia, the AP reported. 

The museum is withholding the names as work continues.

Excavations in 2023 yielded a mass grave at the powder magazine. (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

“The next step in the search for the soldiers’ identities is working with a genealogist and the recovered DNA to conclusively connect the Confederate burials to living relatives, a process that may take over a year,” Ellen Morgan Peltz, public relations manager for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, wrote the Picket in an email.

The remains of the four men were buried last week at Williamburg’s Cedar Grove Cemetery, where other Confederates rest. Remains of three amputated legs also were found during excavations around the magazine’s wall from February to April 2023. 

“Each soldier’s remains were placed in an individual stainless-steel box and buried in an individual vault. The three amputated limbs were buried together in their own box and vault for a total of five boxes and five vaults,” Peltz said. “The burials took place quietly and without ceremony.”

The soldiers likely took part in the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg in Virginia.

The inconclusive Battle of Williamsburg, according to the National Park Service, was the first pitched battle of the Peninsula Campaign, following a Confederate retreat from Yorktown. Hooker’s division attacked the Southerners at Fort Magruder, but was repulsed. Confederate counterattacks ultimately failed and they made a nighttime withdrawal toward Richmond. Casualties numbered more than 3,800.

Some wounded troops were treated at a Williamsburg makeshift hospital, officials said.

“The museum has recovered enough genetic material from the men’s teeth for possible matches,” the AP reported. “But the prospect of identifying them emerged only after the team located handwritten lists in an archive that name the soldiers in that hospital.”

Hancock's Federal troops launch attack on May 5, 1862 (Library of Congress)

The four soldiers had been buried respectfully, with their hands folded. Bullets, gold coins, buttons and suspender buckles were found with the skeletal remains. One had a bullet in his spine.

Rebel troops used the magazine in 1861 to store ordnance. Colonial Williamsburg was conducting a restoration project at the site when the grave was discovered.

The remains were sent to the Institute for Historical Biology at William & Mary, a nearby university, for analysis.

Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director of archaeology, said his team used account books and newspapers to narrow down a historic list of 29 individuals who died on that site after the Battle of Williamsburg to a short list of individuals who might be matches for the burials.

The archaeologists eliminated soldiers who survived or lost an extremity, the AP reported. The four skeletons had all of their limbs. Death dates were key because three men were buried together, allowing the team to pinpoint three soldiers who died around the same time.

Use of the powder magazine dates to the American Revolution (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

“Doing this type of identification with burials this old takes a unique set of circumstances. In this case we are lucky to have numerous lines of evidence we can draw on to try and determine the names of these individuals,” Gary said in a statement. Future efforts will include seeking DNA swabs from descendants

Women who visited the wounded kept some records with names. Those documents are kept at William & Mary. The Picket reached out Friday to the library’s special collections research center for details and possible images of the papers but has not heard back.

In a March 2023 article after the discovery of the grave, The Virginia Gazette quoted a local historian as saying the remains are likely Confederate.

“With the Union occupation of the city after the battle, Union remains were collected and ultimately buried at the cemetery in Yorktown,” said Will Molineux. It’s possibly reburial crews missed these two pits.

The article said battle expert Carson O. Hudson wrote in his book, “Civil War Williamsburg,” that the Confederates “were buried in large square pits on the west side of the building” adjacent to the magazine.

Their bones were found during work on a riverfront park. Now Union soldiers may be interred at Fredericksburg National Cemetery

Archaeologists test potential gravesite (National Park Service)

Scores of bone fragments found near the site of a hospital used during the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va., are expected to be interred at a federal cemetery that holds the remains of more than 15,000 soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War.

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park this week posted a Facebook update on the city’s request that the unidentified remains find a final resting place at Fredericksburg National Cemetery, which has not had a soldier or veteran buried there since 1945.

Park officials are trying to find a suitable spot for the burial. They posted  photographs of a National Park Service team at the cemetery testing the proposed location.

“Ground-penetrating radar (done earlier) indicates that the proposed location at the end of this row would work for a new gravesite,” the post says. “However, in this part of the process, the archaeologists need to make sure that the location of the proposed grave is clear of any other burials or archaeologically significant material.”

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

John Hennessy, chief historian and chief of interpretation at the park, told the Picket in an email that the remains were found on city property – the site of the downtown Riverfront Park along the Rappahannock River – by a cultural resources firm working with the city.

“Any analysis of the remains has been done by them and to my knowledge has not been made public,” said Hennessy.

Hennessy said officials have made no decisions about the timing or nature of any ceremony that may attend the reinterment of the soldiers’ remains

The Picket reached out to Dovetail Cultural Resource Group but received no immediately reply.

Recent testing at the national cemetery (NPS photo)

A November 2015 article by The Free Lance-Star newspaper detailed the find near the Rowe-Goolrick house, which served as a hospital during the December 1862 battle. A report said the bones were found mixed in with buttons and bits of fabric from Union infantry uniforms and other items in what may have been a root cellar.

The discovery was made after a Masonic hall next to the Rowe-Goolrick house site was torn down and officials called the company in to study the site. Presumably, remains of soldiers who died at the hospital were buried in the adjoining parcel.

The Rowe-Goolrick house was among several on Sophia Street. It was demolished in 1973 to make room for a parking lot that is now part of the park development. The Picket reached out to the city for a status report on the park project, but received no reply.

A 2019 blog post on the Dovetail website details the discovery of several building foundations and artifacts in the historic area after excavations for the park. It describes the Rowe-Goolrick house:

The now-gone Rowe-Goolrick house in the 1930s (Library of Congress)

“Built in the mid-eighteenth century, this two-story, three-bay home did not face today’s street grid but rather the original town ferry lane, which ceased use shortly after the home was constructed. The foundation of the house was fashioned of local Aquia sandstone.”

As at other battle sites, temporary hospitals were established in Fredericksburg.

According to the Free Lance-Star, there are written accounts from several individuals, including some serving in the 14^th Connecticut Infantry, that describe convalescing on the house’s grounds. Park officials in 2019 said graves were often overlooked in the years following the war.

Sophia Street fronts the Rappahannock River and was home to some of the earliest structures in Fredericksburg, Hennessy has written on his blog. A few survive.

A fascinating circa 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).

The Eubank home (By Bradley Owen, HMdb.org)

In recent years, the Eubank home was renovated into office space and a sign outside uses the name Thornton’s Tavern to mark a pre-Civil War establishment in the building.

The Historical Marker Database’s page on the home includes this description on the marker:

“In December 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed violently in the city's streets during the First Battle of Fredericksburg. The Tavern's owner … one of Fredericksburg's few female property owners at the time … returned after the fighting to find that her home had miraculously survived the battle with only minor damage.”

The park visitor center, about a mile from Sophia Street, interprets the story of several Civil War campaigns and battles in the area over a three-year period.

“Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania -- this is America's battleground, where the Civil War roared to its bloody climax,” its website says. “No place more vividly reflects the War's tragic cost in all its forms. A town bombarded and looted. Farms large and small ruined. Refugees by the thousands forced into the countryside. More than 85,000 men wounded; 15,000 killed -- most in graves unknown.”

Re-enacting garrison life at Fort Monroe

As many as 175 living historians -- donning Civil War uniforms, other period attire and stances -- will set up camp on Fort Monroe in Virginia this weekend to pay tribute to the garrison life on the former military post. The National Park Service is hosting the festival called “The Garrison Life at Fort Monroe: A Gathering of Steel for the Peninsula Campaign, 1862.” The event, in its fourth year, will be staged on the parade grounds near Quarters No. 1 and other areas within the 565-acre property. • Article

Nutmeg and bad shots: 3 tidbits about the victorious Federal siege of Fort Pulaski

Damage from Union artillery (Picket photo)

Today marks the 155^th anniversary of the surrender of Fort Pulaski to Federal troops who laid siege on Cockspur Island east of Savannah, Ga. Once considered nearly invincible, this brick fortification fell to rifled artillery that began bombarding the Confederate garrison the day before. Col. Charles Olmstead, fearing ammunition might explode if struck by a powerful shot and knowing the breach left his troops vulnerable to an infantry assault, surrendered after 2 p.m. on April 11. The Picket asked Joel Cadoff, spokesman and chief of interpretation at Fort Pulaski National Monument, to share some little-known facts about the 1862 siege.

1. When Maj. Gen. David Hunter's surrender demand was rejected, he sent the message: "The General sends his compliments and desires you to open the ball at once."

The siege began at 8:15 a.m. on Thursday, April 10, 1862, and the first shot fired was a shell from a 13-inch seacoast mortar in Batter Halleck on Tybee Island. A member of the 7th Connecticut Infantry chalked on the shell, "A nutmeg from Connecticut; can you furnish a grater?"

Quincy A. Gillmore

2. While there were 10 rifled cannon utilized by the Federals on Tybee Island, there were two rifled cannon utilized in the Confederate garrison. In November 1861, a blockade runner, Fingal, later turned into the CSS Atlanta, brought in materials and supplies included Enfield muskets and two 24-pounder Blakely rifled cannon. Those two cannon would be emplaced at Fort Pulaski for the battle.

3. Members of the 46th New York Infantry manned the rifled guns of Battery Sigel. The regiment’s commander, Col. Rudolph Rosa disregarded his firing instructions and mounted the parapet. He drew his sword and directed all six guns to fire in a volley. He continued to do this, much to acting Brig. Gen. Quincy Gillmore's chagrin.

The 46th New York "was making bad work of it," and Rosa was ordered away. When the men of the 46th refused to work their guns, they were replaced by sailors from the USS Wabash.   

Where eagles dare: Well-preserved Virginia site to tell story of Potomac blockade

Remains of gun batteries (Courtesy of Prince William County, Va.)

While Confederate artillery batteries erected below Washington, D.C. had more bark than bite – observers wrote of poor marksmanship and munitions -- they effectively blockaded the vital Potomac River for five months.

Among the most imposing was Cockpit Point Battery in Prince William County, Va. Sitting atop a 70-foot bluff, the fort had an air of mystery from the beginning. It was built in secret, with trees left in front to better hide the construction. Curious Federal troops on the Maryland side of the river eventually used a balloon to try to figure out how many men were at Cockpit Point and other batteries in the area.

The Rebel emplacements thrown up early in the war saw relatively little action, but the threat embarrassed the Federal government and to a degree stymied efforts to resupply the capital.

“It is something that is really unknown, even to hard-core Civil War buffs,” said Bill Backus of the county’s Historic Preservation Division.

(Courtesy of Prince William County)

Backus and colleague Rob Orrison earlier this month conducted the first public tours (above) of the property, which was donated about a year ago by the developers of Potomac Shores, a large residential and golf community just to the north of Cockpit Point.

Cockpit Point Civil War Park, a few miles east of Dumfries, is not technically open. The 113 acres are split by a busy railroad line that passes by a chemical facility and the Possum Point Power station, modern facilities that bookend the park.

County officials for now will concentrate on a 93-acre parcel of the property, with the hopes of putting in a small parking lot later this year (until then, people are not encouraged to drive to the site). That side will highlight natural resources, including a pond. The park has two bald eagle nests.

“We think it is going to be mixed use, because access of the earthworks is limited, because of the railroad,” Backus said. “Our ultimate goal is to put a trail system to both sides of the park.”

There is no timetable for putting a trail or interpretive markers on the battery side of the property. There currently is no safe (or legal) way to cross the railroad. Officials encourage visitation through special tours in the spring and November.

Federal balloon gazed down on Confederate batteries (click to enlarge)

The 20 people who took part in this month’s visit saw “some of the few batteries that remain from the blockade of the Potomac River in the first year of the war,” said Backus.

In a press release announcing the tours, Orrison, the county's historic site operations supervisor, wrote: "This property is unique as it contains some of the best preserved earthworks and forts from the Civil War in Northern Virginia. It's by far the best-preserved Civil War battery associated with the Potomac Blockade." 

'A remarkable military position'

The Texas Brigade is said to have been among the units that Brig. Gen. Isaac Trimble employed in autumn 1861 to build the four lunettes on the bluff, called Possum Nose.

Backus said the batteries probably are about 150-200 yards from the Potomac.

(Illustration appeared in Harper's Weekly)

The Confederacy rotated artillery in and out of the fort. Sometimes there were six, sometimes fewer. A 30-pounder Parrott, nicknamed “Long Tom,” was used, along with guns from the Norfolk naval station. Between 100 and 200 men were in the garrison.

The Federal government was worried by Cockpit Point and nearby Shipping Point, Freestone Point and Evansport fortifications (totaling 37 heavy guns); a pro-Unionist called the former a “remarkable military position.”

Backus and Orrison recently wrote about the blockade for Blue & Gray magazine. They stress the Federal government needed an open Potomac River for resupply and communication reasons, along with a wish to keep Maryland out of the fight.

Orrison, in the blog Emerging Civil War, wrote: “Though the batteries were constructed under the auspices of the Confederate Navy, the men manning the guns were infantry. Various units moved in and out of the area to man the guns, and their skill as gunners was obvious, as they rarely were able to hit anything that fired along the river.”

While the blockade lasted until March 1862, Cockpit Point took a beating from the Union navy in January 1862. Two vessels – the USS Yankee and USS Anacostia --  pounded the batteries from positions that couldn’t be easily hit by return fire. Shots from the USS Anacostia were accurate enough to force the Confederates to abandon one of the batteries. But the fort remained in Southern hands

(Courtesy of Prince William County)

Federal troops and batteries on the Maryland side hoped for help from Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who could have used his massive force on the Virginia side to attack the batteries from the rear. But he apparently felt that did not fit within the larger strategy, Orrison writes.

Instead, it was Rebels who took the batteries out of action.

In early March 1862, they withdrew to build new defenses along the south bank of the Rappahannock River. An attempt was made to destroy the river positions.

John S. Salmon, in his “The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide,” wrote a Federal landing party found evidence of a hasty departure: Half-baked bread, clothes and spiked cannons.

For their part, Federal forces used Cockpit Point to launch patrols, “mainly looking for guerrillas.” They knocked the batteries down further so they would be of little or no use if the Confederates retook them.

Map of battle corps and study areas, American Battlefield Protection Program

Keeping further deterioration in check

Backus says the remnants of the lunettes are quite discernible. Trees have moved in and other natural forces have worked on the fortifications over the past 155 years. Still, the state of preservation is considered to be good and there have been few modern disturbances.

Foundations of winter huts are still in place, along with the remains of a communications trench.

A study conducted for the county said it should work to maintain surrounding forest to protect surviving earthworks and take steps to prevent vandalism.

There has been evidence of fairly recent relic hunting, and officials don’t want visitors on site. They could cause more damage to the batteries. “We are trying to keep it protected by not marking where everything is,” Backus told the Picket.

There’s no interest in reconstructing the defenses. Instead, officials want to prevent any further deterioration. One bluff is eroding and officials may step in to help stabilize it.

This day in Civil War history: Raid leader James Andrews is hanged as spy

(Picket photo)

James J. Andrews was going to hang. It was just a matter of when and where.

The leader of the failed Andrews Raid decided to break out on May 31, 1862, after receiving his death warrant at a jail in Chattanooga. Andrews was captured two days later, put in ankle irons and given time to write farewell letters as execution scaffolding was erected outside the unpleasant Swaim’s Jail.

But Andrews would not die in Chattanooga. The condemned man was put on a train to Atlanta when Federal troops got too close. Townspeople in Georgia taunted him at station stops during the sad journey.

James Andrews

On this day (June 7), 154 years ago, Andrews was hanged in what is now the Midtown neighborhood in Atlanta only hours after the train came to a stop.

Seven other men also convicted as spies in the April 1862 raid, known as the “Great Locomotive Chase,” had traveled with Andrews to Atlanta. They were executed on June 18 a few miles to the southeast, next to Oakland Cemetery.

A spring 2015 article in Civil War Quarterly gave this account of Andrews’ death:

“Andrews’ sentence was carried out first, at 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 7, near the intersection of Juniper and Third Streets in Atlanta. The hanging was horribly botched: the cotton rope stretched and Andrews’ feet touched the earth. A guard had to swing the doomed man’s struggling body off to the side and hold it there as another scraped away the ground while Andrews slowly strangled.” The account is corroborated in a book by a raid survivor.

A historical marker stands today along a busy street.

Andrews, still wearing his shackles, was buried near the execution site. His remains were exhumed in 1887, when he joined his seven comrades at the federal cemetery in Chattanooga.

Seven raiders are hanged near Oakland Cemetery

Some 20 Union soldiers were part of the raid, and six of those who were exchanged as prisoners received the first Medals of Honor in March 1863. Andrews, who was about 33, was not eligible because he was a civilian.

Andrews and his band of “engine thieves” tried to destroy much of the Western & Atlantic Railroad and communications as they rushed northward from Big Shanty, Ga., toward Chattanooga. The damaged they created was negligible. They were captured near Ringgold, Ga. Those not executed either escaped or were exchanged.

Andrews marker is behind shrubs next to apartment building (Picket)

Much has been written about the failed raid, and film accounts include a Disney production. One of the most riveting written accounts was by William Pittenger, a member of the operation.

Pittenger wrote of a group of the imprisoned soldiers saying farewell to Andrews in Chattanooga before they were moved to Knoxville, Tenn. It was about a week before their leader learned of his fate.

“I will never forget his last words, as he silently pressed our hands, and with a tear in his blue eye, and a low, sweet voice, that thrilled through my inmost being, said, ‘Boys, if I never see you here again, try to meet me on the other side of Jordan.’ It was our last earthly meeting.”

Locomotive tops monument in Chattanooga (Library of Congress)

Observances in Memphis through weekend

More than 200 people gathered in Confederate Park to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the 1862 Battle of Memphis with a cannon-blasting finale and a lesson about the Tenneessee city's reluctance to surrender. • Article