Colonial Williamsburg asking descendants of South Carolina soldier to provide DNA to determine whether he was among 4 Confederates buried near Powder Magazine

2023 excavation of graves (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation); 1907 view of church and Powder Magazine (Harry Mann photos, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William & Mary); Battle of Williamsburg (LOC)

Last fall, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation mailed out a handful of letters, the correspondence topped by a drawing of the old Virginia Capitol and beneath it the words: “That the future may learn from the past.”

The heading read: RE: Potential Ancestral Connection to Skeletal Remains at Colonial Williamsburg.

Contained in the letter’s five paragraphs was a request that must have jolted the recipients and, if they complied, help fulfill the mission of making the past relevant.

The letter explained the remains of four Confederate soldiers had been found in 2023 in a pit and grave near the history site’s Powder Magazine. They died from wounds suffered in the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg. Further, the letter stated, a handwritten list of those treated at a makeshift hospital – established in a Baptist church near the magazine – still exists.

Then the inquiry became very personal.

“We are reaching out to you because our genealogist has identified you, based on publicly accessible data sources, as a descendant of … one of the soldiers who is named on the hospital list.” That individual mentioned in the letter believed to be among the four remains.

One of Isabella T. Sully's hospital patient list pages she recorded at Williamsburg Baptist (Tucker-Coleman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William & Mary)

“If this matches your understanding of your family tree, would you be willing to participate in a DNA study to help confirm the name of this individual?,” the letter continued.

Four descendants said yes. On March 2, a kit was mailed out to each. The recipients will provide DNA from their cheeks and mail the swabs back for analysis.

Their presumed ancestor, says Jack Gary, executive director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, was from the Piedmont region of South Carolina. DNA analysis showed him to be in his 20s. The infantryman was mortally wounded in fighting at Fort Magruder.

The South Carolinian has the most robust family tree of the four, and the project decided to confirm his identity first, aiming the letters at his kin. The soldiers’ names are being withheld for now as research and analysis continues.

Hospital list made the search possible

Gary, who signed the letter and heard from one descendant within a few days, said the endeavor has already been remarkable -- with much more to learn.

“I have not experienced this in my career,” he told the Picket in a recent phone call. “Not many archaeologists have used DNA this way.”

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

Gary’s team -- which includes staff archaeologist Eric Schweickart,  lab technician Evan Bell and Elizabeth Drembus, a genealogist at William & Mary -- are the beneficiaries of good fortune in their hunt to put names to the four sets of remains, which were buried last year at the city’s Cedar Grove Cemetery, near the graves of other Confederates killed in the battle.

Working from the hospital list, census, newspaper accounts, the ledger of an undertaker and other records, the team narrowed the possible identities to four men who served in regiments from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia.

Without those documents, the effort would never have gotten off the ground.

“You have to have a known person to go off to trace their ancestry to the modern day,” said Gary (right, at another dig. Photo Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).

The list of names, made by a widow who visited the hospital and later raised money to rebury scores of Rebel soldiers who died at Williamsburg, was especially crucial.

It provided names and regiments of more than 60 soldiers and notes indicating if and when they died. Colonial Williamsburg did not see the hospital list until after the graves were found in 2023. Bell stumbled across it while doing research and the discovery opened the door.

Bell studied two versions to winnow the list of possible candidates down to the four soldiers.

Gary said, if the attempt to identify the remains is successful, descendants will know precisely what happened to the soldiers after they were sent to Virginia to fight. That knowledge will fill in gaps for each of their stories. Somehow, these four warriors were left behind when other hospital dead were moved to cemeteries.

Another aim is to eventually publish all four confirmed names.

“We should try to put a name back with the individual out of respect for human dignity,” Gary said of the South Carolinian. “If this is the man who we think this is, it will be incredibly rewarding.”

At Williamsburg, soldiers first saw the elephant

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

The inconclusive Battle of Williamsburg was the first pitched battle of the Peninsula Campaign, following a Confederate retreat from Yorktown. Most of the combatants had seen little or no action before the clash.

Federal Brig. Gen. Joseph 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.

Federal forces took the city, holding it for the rest of the war. A few hospitals sprang up to handle the influx of wounded on both sides.

Williamsburg Baptist Church, which was formed in the early 19^th century, had already been pressed into service before the battle, treating sick Confederates soldiers stationed at Fort Magruder and elsewhere.

Historic courthouse (left), the Powder Magazine and old Williamsburg Baptist church (right) / Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

It received the largest crush of the wounded. 

The church, which moved to a new location in the 1930s, kept no records during the Civil War. But an article provided to the Picket by church office administrator Haley Matthews claims the old site was “greatly abused” during the chaos following the battle.

“Bloodstains were on the floors and the pews were stored in an open shed exposed to the weather. Soldiers were buried in the church yard near the west door, as many as 17 in one grave. Their bodies were afterwards removed to the cemetery.”

The 2023 surprise discovery at the Powder Magazine proved not all had been relocated.

Isabella Sully is the story's primary hero 

The Confederates treated at the Baptist church hospital were prisoners of war. The Union forces wanted to move those well enough to Fort Monroe.

But dozens, including these four, were grievously wounded and could not be sent elsewhere. Many died in the days and weeks following the battle.

Local residents and clerics came to the hospital, to give comfort to the wounded and send updates to family members.

Among them was Isabella Thompson Sully, a widow from Richmond who had traveled to Williamsburg. She and friend Cynthia Tucker Coleman provided riveting accounts of the suffering, with Coleman calling one drunken surgeon the “Head Devil.”

A 1937 article in the journal Religious Herald mentioned the 17 soldiers interred in the churchyard near the west door, “buried like sardines in a box.” The author said an African-American showed him the graves years before and they were removed to a cemetery.

In 1892, Sully wrote a letter (left, click to enlarge) that appeared in the Richmond Times, saying 25 of the Rebel dead were buried in the green near the Baptist church. She described the dearth of medicine and food until the Union army brought supplies.

“I shall never be able to tell how we managed to keep so many wounded and starving men alive, so that several days elapsed before I was able to make a list of those who remained,” wrote Sully.

As more men died, they were buried in pits near the first 25.

Critically, Sully in 1862 recorded the names of the wounded, their regiments and company. Dying soldiers were worried about being placed in unmarked graves

She recorded the date of death and burial locations, when possible. She gave the list to Coleman, and the latter’s papers ended up hiding in plain sight at William & Mary's Swem Library Special Collections.

Archaeologists at Colonial Williamsburg were aware of a list, but they had no idea where it was.

'They said they was goin' to take them up'

Following the Civil War, Sully and others raised money to move scores of Confederate soldiers from the graves around the church to Cedar Grove and Bruton Parish Church cemeteries.

A post-1892 monument at Bruton Parish (photo below) lists names of men allegedly buried there, but some apparently were laid to rest elsewhere in the city. One did not die at the battle, said Bell.

Bell believes the burial parties got those in the larger pits and trenches near the Baptist church but somehow did not come across the four soldiers. “It seems like they just barely were missed.”

Interestingly, a formerly enslaved woman mentioned those four burials in a conversation that appeared in a 1933 book.

"It is a pity, pity, pity, for people to treat each other so bad. Lots of men were buried around the Powder Horn. They said they was goin' to take them up, but I ain't never seen them do it,” Eliza Baker said.

I asked why officials did not excavate the graves after Baker mentioned the lost burials. Colonial Williamsburg as a tourist attraction had begun to take shape by the 1930s.

Archaeology was focused then on the site’s architecture and buildings, Bell said.

In 2023, archaeologists were working around the Powder Magazine, which was being renovated. A reconstruction of the 1757 Market House had replaced the old Baptist Church nearby. Both were near Duke of Gloucester Street.

At a reconstructed wall, they came across a single grave and a pit containing three men. All four had all of their limbs. Nearby was a pit with three amputated legs. It was a real surprise, since most histories indicated the dead from the hospital had all been accounted for and moved.

“There is a cluster of men who died around the same time,” Gary recalls. “We assumed they died the same day or one day and the next day. You are not going to leave a pit open.”

The research team determined the four soldiers died on and around May 15, 1862.

Cynthia Tucker Coleman (left), a writer and preservationist who advocated for the restoration of historic buildings at Williamsburg, provided a vivid account of the occupation of the town and the hospital.

“The writer can never forget seeing a dead soldier wrapped in his coarse blanket lying in the vestibule of the Church, his body kept for a comrade to die that the trouble of interment might be lessened – A Confederate woman placed a white rose upon his breast and shed a tear for those who loved him at home.”

Her account is kept at the William & Mary library and can be seen online here.

Bell recalls the archaeologists sanitized their excavation tools and wore personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep their own DNA away from the remains. Some of the deceased had personal items. They were not buried in uniforms.

Experts were able to extract genetic material from teeth and skull bones. Subsequent DNA analysis showed one soldier to be in late 40s or early 50s. One was maybe 15 while another was in his 20s and the fourth in his 20s-30s.

“We had well-preserved DNA,” said Gary, who has a theory as to why the skeletal remains were in relatively good condition.

The courtyard area around the magazine was paved with shell. “It is possible that the shell changed the pH of the soil, making it less acidic.”

His detective work soon began in earnest

Bell got to work on figuring out who these four soldiers were. The journey had a few twists and turns, but the key was finding Sully’s pages, which are kept at William & Mary.

While Bell (right) was looking at documents relating to Cynthia Coleman, he asked one of the Special Collections assistants, Carolyn Wilson, about the hospital list. That’s when he learned the pages were kept in papers related to Charles Washington Coleman, Cynthia’s son.

He recalls thinking, “Oh, my God. This is the list Isabella Sully was talking about. The archivist there saved the day.”

Bell later found a somewhat similar list at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. The page is within the family papers of Samuel Blain. It is not known for certain who took those handwritten notes.

The Presbyterian minister visited the hospital and corresponded with the family of patient William Davis, who died in Williamsburg. The list at Washington & Lee helped Bell eliminate soldiers whose limbs were amputated.

The technician kept an Excel spreadsheet, ensuring the narrowed list did not mention men with amputations. He found some of the 60-plus patients at the church were buried elsewhere. Using the Blain list helped him cut the number of possibilities to 29.

Bell provided the Picket a breakdown of the numbers he used:

-- 66 names on the combined lists; this includes men who only stayed at private homes, not just the hospital.

-- 31 of the 66 survived Williamsburg leaving 35 men who died of their wounds after the battle.

-- 15 of the 35 have recorded burials or died in private homes leaving 20 men who died of their wounds after the battle, but do not have recorded burials. (At left, map of Fort Magruder, Library of Congress)

-- 5 of the 20 have recorded amputations leaving 15 men who died of their wounds after the battle, and did not have amputations. (11 of the 58 names on the Blain list have amputations)

That was how the list was reduced down to 15 names for analysis.

Death dates were key because three men were buried together, allowing the team to pinpoint soldiers who died about the same time.

 “We believe they were some of the first to die,” said Bell.

The four apparently were buried close to a wooden fence. “There is no space for any other burials.” That means they were off by themselves from other pits dotting the green.

Trying to bring closure more than 160 years later

The research team, which includes Dr. Raquel Fleskes at Dartmouth College, noted that the South Carolina soldier had no children but several brothers and sisters. They are in touch with male descendants of one brother. 

Those who responded to Gary’s letter have the same last name as the unnamed soldier, who died in his 20s. (Below, Powder Magazine, Wikipedia)

“If we can make a match with him we can likely confirm the other individuals,” said Gary.

Bell said the challenge with the other three soldiers is there are either few siblings to work from or almost no information available on their families.

Even if Colonial Williamsburg is unable to match DNA matches, the descendants will know their ancestors fought at Williamsburg and struggled for life in a field hospital before passing away.

“I want to see if my hypothesis is right and (we) bring closure to the descendants,” said Bell.

The result also could bring narrative stories to an American citizenry that doesn’t interact as much with history as they used to, he added.

Old number 9: Vandals and thieves tried to diminish this Civil War cannon. The weathered survivor, displayed for a decade at a Georgia battlefield, will be a star artifact at an upcoming Atlanta History Center exhibit

Key's battery howitzer at Pickett's Mill (Picket photo), number 9 on top of dented muzzle (Georgia State Parks), gun after it was recovered in Spalding County, Ga. in 2010, and artillery Capt. Thomas Key (Wikipedia); click to enlarge images

A dinged-up 12-pounder howitzer that survived numerous battles, years of vandalism and theft from a city park will be returned next month from a Georgia battlefield to the Atlanta History Center, where it will be featured in a new exhibition telling a bigger story about the Civil War.

The gun, manufactured in Boston in 1851 for the Arkansas Military Institute, has been on loan for nearly 10 years to Pickett’s Mill Battlefield State Historic Site northwest of Atlanta. It’s possible it was used to mow down Federal attackers who futilely charged through a ravine toward Confederates waiting for them in strength.

“Captain Key's howitzer is one of the most important artifacts /stories we have going into the new exhibit,” Gordon Jones, senior military and historian at the AHC, wrote the Picket in a recent email. “It'll be a cornerstone of the Atlanta Campaign area, right up there with the U.S. Army wagon, Confederate flag that flew over Atlanta, Cleburne sword, plus more new acquisitions.”

Jones was referring to Confederate Capt. Thomas Key, whose Arkansas artillery battery served in the division of legendary Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne during the Atlanta Campaign.

Key's Battery flag (Wikipedia

The AHC in 2016 lent the gun to the state park as it prepared to move the “Battle of Atlanta” cyclorama painting from the city’s Grant Park to the center’s facilities in the Buckhead neighborhood (The gun, below, during its move from the AHC to Pickett's Mill).

For the AHC and history aficionados, the audacious Key and his four-gun battery are remembered for being in the thick of things in numerous 1864 Atlanta Campaign battles – Dalton, Pickett’s Mill, Peachtree Creek and Jonesboro, among others..

Yet this bronze gun has a postwar history as interesting as its service during the war. It had several postwar homes and was vandalized while displayed outside in Grant Park. Indignities included a broken cascabel, hacksaw marks and scores of indentations.

The howitzer was subsequently stolen, turning up in a county south of Atlanta.

The AHC gained custody of the weapon and had it refurbished and placed on a carriage that was built in 1936.

Thomas Bailey, who makes and restores carriages and other artillery components, recalls working on the Key howitzer, which has an artillery shell jammed into its 780-pound barrel.

“It always stood out to me how beat up it was,” said the owner of Historical Ordnance Works in Woodstock, Ga. “Somebody tried breaking it up for scrap. There were saw marks on the trunnion.” He estimates the barrel had about 60 marks from a sledgehammer.

So you can say this gun is a survivor -- from the horrors of war and the ravages of vandals.

Key and his men always in the thick of things

The Key battery howitzer was one of two cast by Cyrus Alger & Co. for the Arkansas Military Institute. The number 9 is stamped on its muzzle face and the barrel is marked with an eagle atop a globe.

At Chickamauga, in September 1863, his superiors lauded Key for his gallantry and effectiveness, saying that in the fiercest part of the struggle he ran his battery by hand to within 60 yards of the enemy's lines.

Key and his cannons played a large part in the Confederate victory at Pickett’s Mill on May 27, 1864. Cleburne ordered Key to place two guns to the right oblique to enfilade the ravine. 

It’s uncertain whether number 9 was one of those two, but it certainly was among the four battery guns there.

Federal troops under Brig. Gen. William Hazen charged uphill in their attempt to take the top of a ridge. Key’s howitzers were ready for them. The battery fired about 182 rounds of spherical case and canister in two hours.

The Federal army suffered about 1,600 casualties at the battle, compared to 500 for the South. (At right, volunteer Michael Hitt at Pickett's Mill ravine in 2023, Picket photo)

On July 25, 1864, Key’s Battery was issued Napoleons captured from the Federals during the Battle of Atlanta and number 9 was sent to the Macon Arsenal. The Napoleons were considered a step up.

In his postwar book, Key wrote he regretted parting with number 9, which had been with his men at Perryville, Missionary Ridge, Resaca, New Hope Church,  Peachtree Creek and other battles.

“So it cannot be thought strange that I regret having separated from my command a gun that has been my companion under such trying and bloody circumstances.”

The howitzer made a lot of stops after the war

A 2016 newsletter produced by the Georgia Battlefields Association tells what happened to number 9 after the war:

At war’s end, the gun became property of the U.S. Army and was sent to the Washington Arsenal.

In 1880, upon a request on behalf of the state militia, number 9 was one of four guns (including two originally belonging to the Georgia Military Institute) sent to Rome, Ga. In 1887, Atlanta requested four obsolete guns for display in Fort Walker in Grant Park; the Rome guns were selected. (Fort Walker is not far from the old Cyclorama building).

“Over the years, the gun was vandalized: initials scratched, dented, pieces broken off, overturned, etc.,” according to the GBA newsletter, authored by Charlie Crawford, who then served as GBA president.

Michael Hitt, a volunteer historian at Pickett’s Mill and Civil War researcher, provided the Picket two vintage post cards (below) showing the gun when it was at Fort Walker.

In one photograph, the barrel lies on the ground and the left cheek of the gun carriage is heavily damaged.

“Maybe a tree or part of one fell on it,” Hitt said. “The other image shows it remounted, with a big dent on the muzzle, at an 11 o'clock position.”

Something unexpected found at residence

In the 1980s, Hitt – then a suburban Atlanta police officer -- restored three artillery pieces languishing at Fort Walker, part of the South’s defensive works in Atlanta. But vandals continued to damage the guns.

“There’s a lot of history connected with that fort,” Hitt, lamenting the lack of city protection, told The Atlanta Journal in 1984 (article below). “It’s like they abandoned it.”

Things somehow got worse.

“In 1985, all the guns were removed from Fort Walker,” according to the GBA. “Number 9 was removed from its carriage and displayed on a Grant Park monument, from which it was stolen in summer 1993.”

In February 2010, a tip about stolen goods led sheriff’s deputies to a Spalding County house, where they found stolen items, including a crate with a damaged cannon barrel inside. The whole affair was covered by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Hitt at that time identified the gun as number 9 and said it was part of the Helena Artillery, also known as Key’s Battery. It was part of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

While a small debate ensued on whether the gun belonged to Georgia, Arkansas or the U.S. Army, the gun eventually was reclaimed by Atlanta. According to the GBA newsletter, it sat in a crate in the foyer of the old Cyclorama building for a few years.

In 2014, the AHC struck a deal with the city to restore and relocate the giant painting, locomotive Texas and other artifacts in the Cyclorama building to a new wing in Buckhead. That meant the howitzer would move, too.

What a long strange trip it's been for gun

After it was cleaned up, the Key howitzer was shown off in the visitor center at Pickett’s Mill, which is in Paulding County, just northwest of Atlanta.

John Nash, head of the Friends of Pickett’s Mill Battlefield, recalls taking his cannon trailer to the AHC to take the gun and carriage to Pickett’s Mill. The carriage was among those built by Works Progress Administration (WPA) employees in the 1930s when the guns were at Fort Walker.

Now the gun is heading to Buckhead. (Editor's note: I learned about the upcoming move from a Facebook post on The Atlanta Campaign History and Discussion Group.)

The Atlanta History Center in May closed its longtime Civil War exhibit, “Turning Point,” to make way for two new galleries that will feature breathtaking artifacts and a broader discussion of issues that engage the republic to this day: our belief systems, victory, defeat, reconciliation and the evolving meaning of freedom.

Museum officials said they will announce the confirmed name of the new Civil War era exhibition and an opening date in the next week or so.

AHC CEO Sheffield Hale with Union 20th Corps wagon that traveled near what is now the AHC (Picket photo)

Some people on social media had expressed worry the gun would go back into storage at the AHC. Or they advocate it should stay at Pickett's Mill.

Josh Headlee, curator and historic preservation specialist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which oversees state parks, said the weapon’s association with the battle made it a compelling artifact there.

“Rather than it sit in storage for all that time, the AHC was generous enough to reach out to us about the loan,” said Headlee. “Since the Key’s Battery played a prominent role in that battle, it has been a wonderful temporary addition to the Pickett’s Mill exhibits. However, Key’s Battery played an important role in the battles for Atlanta as well, so it’s just at home in their collection as it is ours.”

Hitt, a board member with the Pickett’s Mill friends group, agrees.

“I was able to get the Key battery howitzer (loaned) out from the AHC several years ago with the knowledge that it would be returned when it was needed for a display. Well, it is going to be part of a display now at the AHC and I don't have an issue with it. The gun's Atlanta story is just as interesting as the Pickett's Mill story.”

So there’s the story – for now – about old number 9. Living historians occasionally fire a reproduction Key’s Battery gun at Pickett’s Mill. The next event is scheduled for Jan. 17.

Those wanting to see the original gun at Pickett’s Mill before it leaves have only a few weeks. It will be back in Atlanta some time in February

The old GBA newsletter said the artifact might win a contest for most interesting story. “Go see the gun and marvel at its long, strange trip.”

This Mississippi officer was killed by -- of all things -- a falling tree. Lt. Col. Columbus Sykes left letters and a trove of artifacts. Check out 8 of them at Kennesaw Mountain

Lt. Col. Columbus Sykes and his kepi, glove, duster and sock (Photos: Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park)

At Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountain, Lt. Col. Columbus “Lum” Sykes of the 43^rd Mississippi Infantry narrowly escaped death when a Union battery fired upon his position. The officer, dozing under the shade of a tree, scrambled to safety moments before a second shell smashed his blanket.

“Had I been a few moments later in moving, my head would have probably been blown to atoms,” Sykes wrote in a June 29, 1864, letter home. “We have escaped to many imminent dangers during this campaign, that I can but gratefully attribute our escape to a special interposition of Providence.”

Sykes’ correspondence, which I found on Civil War historian Dan Vemilya’s blog, rings particularly ironic when considering what happened to him seven months later in Mississippi when he was resting under a tree.

He wasn’t so lucky that time.

Sykes, 32, was making his way back home to Aberdeen, Ms., in January 1865 when he and two other soldiers bunked down near a decaying white oak in Itawamba County. During the night, the tree fell, crushing the men. Sykes lingered a short time. According to one account, the officer lamented dying in such a way, rather than battle. “Tell my dear wife and children I loved them to the last.”

Visitors to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park northwest of Atlanta are fortunate Sykes left behind more than his letters to his wife and children. A half dozen items belonging to him were donated by a family member in the late 1940s, received by longtime park superintendent B.C. Yates.

The 43rd Mississippi – famous for its connection to “Old Douglas,” a camel that saw service until it was killed at Vicksburg -- served at Kennesaw Mountain. It was in Adams' brigade (Featherston’s division) in Loring’s Corps, which was deployed near the Western & Atlantic Railroad.

“The location would be just off of the park's northern property to the east of the visitor center,” said Amanda Corman, a park ranger and curator at the site.

The regiment hauled cannon to the Confederates' commanding heights but was not involved in defending against the worst of the June 27, 1864, Union assault, given it was on the far right of the Rebel line.

During a brief visit recently, I studied the Sykes items on exhibit under dark light and asked Corman for additional details and photos.

“The Sykes artifacts are able to provide a personal look into items that an officer may own and take into battle. Unfortunately, there (are) rarely personal items of the common solider to compare such items to an officer's belongings,” she wrote.

I am grateful to Corman and the park for these descriptions of the artifacts. All photos are from the National Park Service.

Leather trunk (right): The item has brass studs and a conventional design, and is 18 inches high, 15 inches wide and nearly 28 inches long. It was embossed at top with a small but ornate design. Trunks were often sent to the rear for safekeeping during marching and fighting. Sherman's cavalry captured hundreds of pieces of Confederate baggage near Fayetteville, Ga., in late July 1864.

Field cap (kepi): The butternut headgear – made from cotton and dyed wool jean cloth -- is homespun with a black oilcloth brim. It features cloth lining, a cardboard button and an oilcloth sweat band. Oilcloth was a substitute for leather. The kepi was copied from a design worn by the French army.

Money belt (above): This artifact is believed to be made of suede or soft leather. It features several compartments, white pearl buttons and strings for tying at the waist. As a lieutenant colonel in infantry, Sykes earned about $170 a month. But it was common for soldiers to go months without being paid.

Sock: It is made of a simple chain weave and the thread is unbleached. Jolie Elder with the Center for Knit and Crochet wrote this about Sykes’ sock: “I wasn’t able to measure the sock, but to my eyes the gauge looked finer than typical for today. I was impressed with how many times the heel had been darned. Sock-making was surely a time-consuming chore and someone was determined this sock get the maximum wear possible.”

Linen duster: At hip length, the garment has outside patch pockets and cloth-covered buttons. Sykes may have worn this jacket in hot weather in place of a frock coat.

Sash (above): Made of a red and black floral design, the sash is about 6 feet long and 1-inch wide. The park on Facebook said this of the garment: “Unique in its design, the sash features a floral motif, common in textile patterns of the Victorian Era. If you look closely, you’ll see the pattern is of roses and thorns, often interpreted as symbols of love and the pains that one must sometimes endure for the sake of love. Could it be that Sykes was gifted this sash of roses and thorns by his wife, Emma, as a reminder of her and the love they shared?”

Glove: The tan item was made for the right hand. The Union and Confederate armies did not supply gloves, so soldiers had to purchase their own.

Frock coat: The coat has Federal eagle buttons and two large gilt wire stars on each collar to signify Sykes’ standing at lieutenant colonel. It featured no braiding. Because of shortages, Confederate officers commonly pilfered Union buttons to replace those they lost.

The 43^rd Mississippi Infantry was formed in summer 1862 with 11 companies. It surrendered in April 1865.

A lawyer, husband and father from a wealthy Mississippi slaveholding family, Sykes survived every hardship of the Atlanta Campaign.

The lieutenant colonel's brother, William, was killed in combat at Decatur, Ala., in 1864. Earlier in the war, Lum was wounded and taken prisoner at Corinth, Ms.

I’ll close this post with part of another June 1864 letter written by Sykes, as published in Vermilya’s blog associated with his 2014 book “The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain” from Arcadia Press. (Vermilya is currently a ranger with Gettysburg National Military Park).

“As long as this unprecedented campaign continues we will have to rough it in the same way, marching, lying, and sleeping in line of battle ready to move at a moment’s notice, day or night. I am now using Paul’s horse, the celebrated ‘Plug Ugly’ as he calls him, as near no horse has ever troubled a man in or out of the army.”

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.