The Washington Post reports . . .
The park service
says it’s the first time that a surgeon’s pit at a Civil War battlefield has
been excavated and studied. The complete remains of two soldiers were found in
the pit, along with 11 partial limbs.
Researchers believe the bodies were those of Union soldiers who died in
the Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Second Battle of Manassas. The
battle was fought in August 1862.
Researchers are
confident the remains belong to Union soldiers because buttons from a Union
jacket were found in the pit. In addition, one of the soldiers had an Enfield
bullet lodged in his thigh bone — those bullets were used almost exclusively by
Confederate soldiers.
The Enfield
bullets also provide a key clue that the pit is from the second Bull Run
battle, not the first. Those bullets were not yet in use during the first Bull
Run battle, which was the first major battle of the war. The location of the
pit also fits with the battle lines from the second battle.
Washington Post Text Source: Washington Post
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.
Washington Post Text Source: Washington Post
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