This Irish-born soldier signed his name at the Warren House, caught up in the decisive Battle of Jonesboro. What became of John W. Dunlava of the 34th Illinois?

Sgt. John Dunlava (regimental history, his signature inside and the exterior of Jonesboro's Warren House (Picket photos)

John William Dunlava was here (Ireland), here (Lynville, Ill.) here (Calcasieu Parish, La.) and, later in life, here (Arthur, N.D.).

For purposes of this blog post, Union Sgt. John Dunlava most importantly was here – the Warren House in Jonesboro, Ga. And he wanted those who came later to know it. Employing large, loopy letters, Dunlava signed his name on an interior wall.

The Warren House, built in 1840, has since then been a wedding and events venue and, currently, an office for psychological therapy. On Aug. 31-Sept. 1, 1864 -- 162 years ago this week -- the residence was at the center of the Battle of Jonesboro, a stunning Confederate loss that resulted in the capitulation of Atlanta.

The Warren House was used as a field hospital and headquarters by Rebel troops until taken by the Union on Sept. 2, 1864, for the same use.

“Captured by the 52nd Illinois Infantry, signatures of convalescing Union soldiers still appear on the walls of the downstairs parlor,” the facility website says. (Picket photo, above). It's possible some of the names are not of soldiers. Some other signatures, including that of Dunlava, are in an upstairs room.

Dunlava (likely pronounced Dunlavey) served in Company E, of the 34^th Illinois, which was in the thick of things at the decisive battle at Jonesboro.

“It looks like they were in the 4 p.m. attack that overran (Daniel) Govan’s brigade and two artillery batteries. Govan was captured and later exchanged for (George) Stoneman,” said Charlie Crawford, president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association.

The exchange in October would include most of Govan's captured men.

I could not tell from a search of online records whether Dunlava was wounded at Jonesboro. And it’s hard to tell whether he left his signature in 1864 or came back to visit the site. Some of the writing on the wall dates to the 1870s, suggesting veterans traveled back to visit battlefields.

Why point out Dunlava?

Good question, and here is my answer. It’s the one name that was legible and I could connect with a service record and biographical details.

So I went down a rabbit hole, scouring the internet for anything I could find about the man, who emigrated to the United States after the Irish potato famine and farmed in the Midwest and the Northern Plains.

A regimental history published in 1902, three years before Dunlava died at age 64, provides some details on his Civil War service. (Photo, findagrave.com)

While a member of a Grand Army of the Republic post in North Dakeota, he is not listed in a list of 34^th Illinois veterans attending an 1897 reunion.

“He says he has not met a 34^th man for thirty years, except Capt. J.M. Myers, of Company H, whom he met on a train, between Chicago and Polo, Ill.,” the regimental history says.

As for the house where he left his name? It's currently for sale with a $1.2 million asking price. 

"The Warren House is more than real estate-it's an opportunity to steward a living piece of history while unlocking its commercial potential," says an eXp Realty listing on Georgia MLS.

He sailed from Ireland to start a new life

John Dunlava was born in County Mayo, Ireland, in June 1840. He came to the United States in 1857 and, like more than 170,000 fellow Irishmen, joined the Federal army.

Signatures of several individuals are encased behind a covering on the back wall (Georgia MLS)

At the time Fort Sumpter was fired on in April 1861, he was attending school in St. Louis, Mo., and "saw the ‘Elephant’ before he appeared to the general public,” said the regimental history.

“Seeing the elephant” was a 19^th-century metaphor for obtaining hard-earned experience, such as in combat.

Known as the “Rock River Rifles,” the 34^th Illinois was organized at Camp Butler in September 1861. Dunlava was right there from the start; he reenlisted at some point.

The regiment fought throughout the Western Theater, from Stones River to Chattanooga, the Atlanta Campaign, including Kennesaw Mountain, the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign.

By late August 1864, Atlanta was not yet subdued and a few supply lines were still available to Confederate troops.

Map of battlefield that appeared in 1902 volume about the 34th Illinois

“Sherman determined that if he could destroy the Macon & Western and Atlanta & West Point Railroads to the south the Rebel army would be forced to evacuate the city,” says the American BattlefieldTrust. To counter Sherman, Hood sent Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee with two corps to halt the Union movement.

“On August 31, Hardee attacked west of Jonesborough but was easily repulsed. Fearing a direct attack on Atlanta, Hood withdrew one corps from Hardee’s force that night. The next day, a Union attack broke through Hardee’ s troops, which retreated south.

The 34th was among those to break Rebel line

The author of the regimental history details the Federal assault by the 14th Corps against worn-down Rebels at Jonesboro. The attackers achieved a rare success for those going against heavily fortified defenses..

"By several accounts, the attacking Confederates on 31 August lost any enthusiasm for the attack before getting close to the U.S. Army lines. Both C.S. and U.S. generals remarked that the usual Southern élan for the offensive was lacking, and the soldiers seemed to forego further advances well before being ordered to retreat," said Crawford.

Confederate POWs under guard after capture (Harpers Pictorial History of the Civil War)

The 34th Illinois and other regiments in the Sept. 1 attack knew they were in for a fight.

“Kenesaw (sic) was now two months old, and quite forgotten," says its history. "There was a saucy foe in front and a sure chance for a fight, with a fairly good chance of giving him a threshing (sic).”

The attack netted about 600 prisoners and eight artillery pieces. Total Confederate casualties for Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 numbered between 1,400 and 2,200. Those captured were close to 900.

The 34th Illinois, which assisted the 78^th Illinois, had five killed and 14 wounded at Jonesboro. From May to Sept. 20, 1864, it suffered about 125 casualties.

The writer of the history, Sgt, Edwin Payne of Company A, described rudimentary field hospitals. Regarding one, “There were forty-nine cases of amputation at the hospital, this writer contributing a right arm to the general assortment of such discovered appendages.”

The loss of the Macon & Western Railroad near Jonesoboro left Atlanta isolated and largely unsupplied. On the evening of Sept. 1, Hood finally evacuated Atlanta, which surrendered to Federal troops on Sept. 2.  

The Warren House (above, Picket photo) was just one of many hospital sites trying to save lives on both sides.

“For many years, a bullet lodged in the wall and cannonballs in the yard were evidence of the proximity of heavy fighting,” says an historical marker outside the home, which is located at 102 W. Mimosa Drive, off busy Jonesboro Road.

I visited the house several years ago and took photographs of the signatures, which are preserved under a clear covering. I couldn’t make out enough words to connect them with a specific soldier, as I did with Dunlava.

“Willi Wood” may be a reference to 34^th officer William S. Wood. The “am” in William likely faded away with time.

Two more names at the end of the long panel in house; click to enlarge (Picket photo)

Veteran, wife endured ups and downs of life on the Plains

Dunlava stayed with the army until October 1864, when he received a 20-day furlough and went home.

“Upon his return, the Army had started on the ‘March to the Sea,’ and he remained in Chattanooga, with Lieutenant Hall, of his Company, until March 1865, and then went, by way of New York, to Morehead City and Goldsboro, and joined his Regiment, 17 miles beyond Raleigh, N.C., and was mustered out as a Sergeant, at Louisville, Ky.,” says the regimental history. His service ended July 12, 1865.

Dunlava is listed in most census forms as a farmer. By 1870, he was living, apparently unmarried, near Lake Charles, La.

The lure of the Great Plains, specifically North Dakota, drew Dunlava and other settlers bent on obtaining land and making their mark on the agricultural expanse.

He met a divorced Clara Seager, seven years his junior, on the Amenia Sharon Land Company's farm at Amenia in spring 1880 (photo, above). The company built a depot and, later, a grain elevator at the nearby Northern Pacific tracks.

“John was one of the farm hands on this farm of 30,000 acres. Clara cooked for the crew of 30 men,” says a page on Digital Horizons, a consortium of institutions celebrating life on the Northern Plains. The account comes from a 1962 history of Arthur, N.D.

“They were married in 1880 and went to live on John's homestead; the NW1 h of Section 30 of Arthur Township. Here they lived through many vicissitudes the next twenty-five years; drought, grasshoppers, hail, chinch bugs, rust and blizzards.”

The couple had four children, according to the Red River Valley Genealogical Society; Clara had two children from her first marriage. A newspaper article referred to him as "one of the old pioneer farmers" in Arthur.

John died May 3, 1905, and is buried in Erie, N.D. His obituary said he had suffered from bronchitis for years, having acquired that in the army. (The notice said Dunlava was wounded at the 1862 Seven Days Battles near Richmond, Va., and was in Libby Prison for six months. The 34th Illinois was not at that action, instead it was in Tennessee at the time.)

Clara moved with family the next year and died in 1920 in Roscoe, S.D. She was 72.

These names speak of lives long gone

Soldiers have long left their mark at places associated with battles and campaigns. There are several other sites in the South bearing scrawled names and graffiti.

This appears to be by a soldier with the 69th Ohio, which was at Jonesboro. This is downstairs (Picket photo)

The Warren House features several names, dates and poems. A history on its website said they were discovered during repairs made in the mid-1930s. The names include Robert Sullivan, James B. Washington and George W. Harding.

“During the Battle of Jonesboro bodies of the dead and wounded were reputedly piled three deep in the grounds behind the Warren House,” according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Crawford, of the GBA, said when he leads tours of Jonesboro or speaks about the Atlanta Campaign, he mentions that of all the engagements during the campaign, there was only one in which the attacking force was largely successful, and that would be Jonesboro

"When the 1993 Civil War Sites Advisory Commission report evaluated the 384 battles it considered, only two battles in Georgia were ranked as Class A -- i.e., having a decisive influence on a campaign and a direct impact on the course of the war," he added. "Those two battles were Chickamauga and Jonesboro. How great it is that Chickamauga was the first battlefield created as a national military park, and how sad it is that Jonesboro is totally unprotected."

Dr. Jack Farrar, who operates Mind Synch, a neuroscience center, bought the house in 1994. He provided mental health services there before revamping it as an event venue in 2012. Those services were largely curtailed after Covid-19 and the house is home to the therapy practice, says Farrar's daughter Sarah (Photo of exterior, Civil War Picket)

Rear of the Warren House can be seen just off Jonesboro Road (Georgia MLS)

Sarah Farrar told the Picket the house, zoned commercial, could be used for a business, residence or bed and breakfast. The family prefers that it be preserved and keep most of its character.

A 2014 article in the Clayton News Daily quoted Jack Farrar as saying soldiers were moved to a dying room when nothing else could be done for them after the battle.

"The surrounding land was once marked by visible breastworks, and relics such as Minie balls were commonly found on the grounds," says the real estate listing.

Was Dunlava wounded at Jonesboro? Visiting a comrade who was? Or just stopped by the Warren House out of curiosity?

If only his signature could tell.

Old number 9: Confederate Capt. Key's howitzer, which for years was on loan to the Pickett's Mill battlefield, debuts in Atlanta History Center's 'More Perfect Union'

Capt. Key howitzer this week at the Atlanta History Center (Civil War Picket photos; click to enlarge)

A 12-pounder howitzer that survived numerous battles, years of vandalism and theft from a city park is now on display at the Atlanta History Center as part of its ambitious  “More Perfect Union” Civil War exhibit

The so-called Capt. Key “No. 9”  howitzer is in the corner of a new gallery featuring fascinating artifacts from the Atlanta Campaign and the July 1864 battles in Atlanta.

It joins many military items in the new exhibit. But more than half of the artifacts in "More Perfect Union" -- especially those linked to the slave trade, African-American troops and repercussions of the conflict -- have been acquired in recent years.

The gun, manufactured in Boston in 1851 for the Arkansas Military Institute, had 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 there 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, told the Picket earlier this year about plans for the museum to bring the cannon back to Atlanta. “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.

The AHC in 2016 lent the gun to the state park as it prepared to move the “Battle of Atlanta” cyclorama painting from Grant Park to the center’s facilities in the Buckhead neighborhood

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 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 eventually 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.

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.

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

The Federal army suffered about 1,600 casualties at the battle, compared to 500 for the South.

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.”

Built by Black laborers, Nashville's Fort Negley -- now getting improvements -- yields a trove of Civil War-era artifacts, including doll's head, percussion caps and glass

Matthew Malone digs in; doll's head and rifle percussion caps were found in that unit (Picket photos)

Above swaths of yellow flowers, known locally as Nashville Mustard, and within sight of the city’s downtown skyline, a small team conducting archaeological digs on the heights of Fort Negley was having a glorious day.

Metro Nashville Historical Commission archaeologist Adam Fracchia and three volunteers worked in two excavation units within the remains of the fort, which was largely built in 1862 by free Blacks and “contrabands” – formerly enslaved people who fled to Nashville during the Civil War.

For all its public appeal, archaeology is especially tedious work. Everything must be recorded and sifted carefully. Some days you come up empty.

But not on this recent Friday.

Liana Blackburn sifts the Tennessee clay as Patrick O'Sullivan works in Unit 6 (Picket photo)

While I soaked up the sunny weather, steady breeze and the great views from St. Cloud Hill, the group – made up of Fracchia, Liana Blackburn, Matthew Malone and Patrick O’Sullivan -- was hitting pay dirt within minutes of setting up shop.

In the few hours that I drifted between the two open pits, the team collected several rifle percussion caps, shards of glass, bricks, cow bones, charred wood from fires and the head of a tiny doll – all likely tied to the time of the fort, which troops left in 1867.

“This is a very exciting day,” said Fracchia, who has been doing archaeological work at the city’s 64-acre historic park for a couple years. “It is unusual to get that many deposits.”

Federal army used string of forts to hold Nashville

Nashville was the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Union, and it didn’t take long for the army to build defensive fortifications to protect access to railroads and the Cumberland River.

Fort Negley during the war (Library of Congress) and Matthew Malone and Adam Fracchia, background (Picket photo)

Later in the war, regiments with the U.S. Colored Troops were among those occupying Negley, which fired on Confederates during the Battle of Nashville in December 1864. It was spared a direct assault; U.S. Colored Troops did fight elsewhere in Nashville during the battle.

Fracchia on most Fridays welcomes the public to take part in the excavations at Fort Negley, which was picked over by relic hunters for a long time. Signs warn visitors it is unlawful to bring metal detectors, dig or remove artifacts.

Still, compelling artifacts such as those uncovered when I was there are still to be found by archaeologists. Fracchia spoke about them with a few visitors who meandered into the project area from time to time.

Park upgrades will honor Black laborers, USCT soldiers

Fort Negley has recently begun the first phase of a major upgrade to the park, which is largely surrounded by highways and commercial development that have largely supplanted the African-American  Bass Street neighborhood.

Many elements of the venue have deteriorated. A key aim is honoring the Black laborers who built the fort.

Site manager Tracy Harris said the work will include improved walkways, interpretive signage, a new overlook structure, a memorial lawn on the site of a former baseball field, Greer Stadium (Background in Picket photo at right) and a Freedom Plaza.

Fracchia and volunteers have been working only in areas that would be disturbed by new walkways and interpretive signs.

The first phase includes an archaeological investigation at the site of the historic Bass Street community along with a public history component, as well as a large-scale mural designed and installed by a local artist, the city says.

Many of the USCT veterans and Black civilian workers settled in the area following the war. The latter were forced to work at Fort Negley, and many died during construction.

Davidson County historian and Tennessee State University professor Learotha Williams said in a February social media post:

African-Americans pressed into building Nashville forts for Union (Annals of the Army of the Cumberland)

“This project and specifically the new memorial lawn will honor all those who came here during the Civil War and, through their service and sacrifice, compelled the city and the nation to redefine citizenship and the meaning of freedom in America.”

Many artifacts seem to be evidence of camp life

On the day I was in town, O’Sullivan and Blackburn worked in Unit 6, which is near what was once a large palisade wall. Much of Civil War-era Fort Negley is gone; young men with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) reconstructed the site during the Depression.

Large stones and walls were set in place, though they have shifted or fallen down in some areas since. (Above, Picket photos from March 2026) City funding for the enhanced park does not include repairing the walls.

Fracchia said the team gets a mix of Civil War and postwar items and it is difficult to tell whether the items we saw that day were deposited during the fort’s construction or later in its service.

Unit 6 might have been a trash pit – inside were livestock bones signifying possible rations for Federal soldiers, bricks and broken bottles, including what may be part of a pickle jar. Fracchia said a wooden post may have been placed within that unit.

Glass jar lid, volunteer Patrick O'Sullivan with cattle rib, fragment of bottle (Picket photos)

The archaeologists became excited upon seeing what appeared to be upside-down bottles.

“I’m excited to see if they are intact,” said O’Sullivan before he and Blackburn carefully dug around them.

The items were not complete – one appeared to be a lid to a jar already collected and the other was the bottom of a bottle believed to be hand-blown.

Fracchia worked with Malone a hundred yards away in Unit 10. While they did not find as many artifacts, they discovered a few percussion caps and the doll’s head, made of either china or bisque.

“We find these mass-produced dolls at domestic sites often,” Fracchia later told me. “I do not know why it was a Fort Negley.” (National Park Service photo, left, from Fort Stanwix)

He made a reference to it possibly being a “Frozen Charlotte,” small, usually unclothed dolls popular during the mid-19^th century until about 1920. If you want to know more about how they got their name, click here.

The short version, according to the National Park Service: The name “Frozen Charlotte” was associated with the dolls once they were gaining in popularity. It is inspired by a folk ballad about an underdressed “Young Charlotte” or “Frozen Charlotte” who froze to death while on a carriage ride to a winter’s ball.

The find was especially exciting, with Malone carefully walking it over for Blackburn and O'Sullivan to see.

Perhaps surprisingly, not many personal items have been found in recent years.

Hey, public: This is your chance to join a dig

The Metro Nashville Historical Commission works out of the restored Sunnyside Mansion in Sevier Park, a few miles southwest of Fort Negley.

Following a disastrous loss at the Battle of Franklin in November 1864, Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood moved upon Nashville, digging in below the city. Federal Maj. Gen. George Thomas attacked about two weeks later, sending Hood’s battered army off the field on Dec. 16.

One of the master plan renderings of the upgraded Fort Negley (Picket photo)

It has long been known that dozens of bullets, including Minie balls, were left on the porch door and columns on the big house at Sunnyside. Fracchia showed me evidence of those before I traveled to Fort Negley. The restored mansion includes display areas showing where some of the bullets or cannon rounds hit.

Fracchia said officials don’t have detailed descriptions of what happened on the property during the battle, but they believe Confederates must have been a significant target because of the number of bullets and holes. They eventually were forced to retreat.

The commission has found rifle pits and entrenchments on the land. 

Fracchia’s work extends other sites. The commission recently won a grant to fund a website where Nashvillians can upload photographs of artifacts they find on their property.

Adam Fracchia and Liana Blackburn show off Unit 6 to visitors (Picket photo)

Fracchia maintains a laboratory with items from Fort Negley and Sunnyside (I will report more on the latter in a subsequent post).

On the day I was in Nashville, a woman visiting Sunnyside Mansion asked about helping with the archaeological work.

“You have to show the public this is yours,” said Fracchia.

Site grid and Liana Blackburn and Adam Fracchia (Picket photos)

Editor's note: Please contact Nashville archaeologist Adam Fracchia at adam.fracchia@nashville.gov if you have questions about the project or want to join the work on site.

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.