Surgeon's Burial Pit Discovered

[Story]

On Wednesday the National Park Service is scheduled to announce that archaeologists have found the "limb pit" where the two soldiers and the amputated arms and legs were buried.

The discovery, on the battlefield just north of Manassas, Va., is extraordinary, experts said.

"As an archaeologist . . . it's exciting," said Brandon S. Bies, who brought the bone out of the pit. "As a human being, lifting the leg of an American soldier and holding the bone with the bullet that killed him, it's an emotional experience."

The two soldiers — referred to as Burial 1, with the embedded bullet, and Burial 2 — were placed side by side in the pit. The severed limbs were carefully arranged next to them, like broken tree branches, according to a photograph from the dig.

Burial 1 probably went in first, because Burial 2 was partially on top of him.

The hole was about a foot deep, and over the years farm plows had carried off the skull of one man and part of the skull of the other.

Anthropologists from the Smithsonian Institution have studied the injuries suffered by the two soldiers and examined the cut marks on the severed limbs made by the surgeons' saws. There were nine severed legs and two arms in all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...stories/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c77f3d944d7f

Note: threads with similar content.
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/ed...ies-at-least-at-antietam.140476/#post-1693233

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/remains-found-in-antietam.76640/#post-529593

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/unmarked-grave-found-145-years-later-at-antietam.87597/#post-689480

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/bones-recovered-at-antietam-2009.10331/#post-126174

 

[Thomasgat]

Wow, how cool is this...?

https://www.nps.gov/mana/learn/historyculture/surgeons-burial-pit-discovered.htm

 

[Frea74]

Another report, here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ield-limb-pit-reveals-work-of-combat-surgeons

 

[Northern Light]

That is very interesting. I wonder if they have been able to identify the bodies yet. What a find! I also wonder that the bodies were buried with the limbs. Was that because of someone being too overwhelmed to take the time to dig two proper graves? It seems odd for that era.

 

[JOHN42768]

Amazing, the amount of destruction of bone from the bullets. Need to spend more time on this later. Thanks

 

[Ole Miss]

Thank y'all for an interesting and informative thread.
Regards
David

 

[skb8721]

Yet another report, in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-their-horror-stories/?utm_term=.db700404ea42

 

[mofederal]

Interesting, thanks for posting this.

 

[mofederal]

All good stories, I had not read all of these stories, I had missed them somehow. Thank you for posting it. They were all new to me.

 

[WJC]

Interesting! Thanks for posting!

 

[James N.]

This is the area of the Deep Cut on the battlefield of Second Manassas where this action seems to have occurred, though not necessarily the location of the field hospital and burial pit. Jackson's line was across on the embankment in the far background running right-to-left across the picture. Union assaults, possibly including the victims found in the pit, went head on against the Confederate line. Below is the same area looking back from the Confederate position toward the woods that Porter's Fifth Corps attacked from:

 

[Story]

Someone on this sight over in the Weapons forums once described a particular type of Civil War bullet as *sexy*.

Right. Let's look at "The cut marks from a surgeon's saw on an amputated femur bone." Credit Kate D. Sherwood, Smithsonian Institution.

You can practically hear the kid screaming over the gulf of time, can't you? Sexy bullet, indeed.

One skeleton, of a Caucasian male in his late 20s, still had a .577 caliber Enfield bullet — which was deployed almost exclusively by the Confederate Army during that battle — lodged sideways in his upper thighbone. Scientists believe the bullet slowed and rotated after passing through his cartridge box.

The second skeleton is of a male in his early 30s, believed to have died from rounds that struck his shoulder, groin and lower leg. Those remains were found with Union Army jacket buttons.

Isotope analyses revealed that during bone formation, both men had consumed food and water from Northern states.

"We use chemistry and forensics to tell their gender, their age, where they're from, what happened. Just like you can read a book, we can read a skeleton," said Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/science/civil-war-archaeology-bones-limbs.html

Note: for those of you on social media, the .577 Minie ball is still capable of obscenities.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/121055402755/permalink/10155526814322756/

 

[Jamieva]

FYI, History Unplugged (a podcast) recently interviewed Brandon Bies about this find. It's an interesting listen.

 

[Rank and File]

Every time I read something like this (and it's a great find and post), the revulsion of this damned war hits home.