Archaeologists in Virginia were excavating the grounds of a building that stored gunpowder during the American Revolution when they uncovered the eye sockets of a human skull. The team carefully unearthed four skeletons, including one with a bullet in the spine, and three amputated legs. They quickly surmised the bones were actually from the Civil War, when a makeshift hospital operated nearby and treated gravely wounded Confederate soldiers. The archaeologists work at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a museum that owns the land and focuses on the city’s 18th century history. They’re now trying to identify human remains from the 19th century, a rare endeavor that will include searching for living descendants and requesting swabs of DNA. The museum has recovered enough genetic material from the men’s teeth for possible matches. But the prospect of identifying them emerged only after the team located handwritten lists in an archive that name the soldiers in that hospital. “It is the key,” said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director of archaeology. “If these men were found in a mass grave on a battlefield, and there was no other information, we probably wouldn’t be trying to do this.” The archaeologists have narrowed the possible identities to four men who served in regiments from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia. The museum is withholding the names as the work continues. Meanwhile, the remains were reinterred Tuesday at a Williamsburg cemetery where Confederate soldiers from the same battle are buried. “Everyone deserves dignity in death,” Gary said. “And being stored in a drawer inside a laboratory does not do that.” ‘Shockingly costly for both sides’ The soldiers fought in the Battle of Williamsburg, a bloody engagement on May 5, 1862. The fighting was part of the Peninsula Campaign, a major Union offensive that tried to end the war quickly. The campaign’s failure that summer, stalling outside the Confederate capital of Richmond, informed President Abraham Lincoln’s decision to end slavery. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln said he intended to reunite the nation with slavery intact in the Southern states, while halting its westward expansion, said Timothy Orr, a military historian and professor at Old Dominion University. But Lincoln realized after the campaign that he needed a more radical approach, Orr said. And while the president faced political pressure for emancipation, freeing people who were enslaved served as “another weapon to defeat the Confederacy.” “He becomes convinced that slavery is feeding the Confederate war effort,” Orr said. “It had to be taken away.” Bigger and bloodier battles followed Williamsburg, Orr said, but it was “shockingly costly for both sides.” Roughly 14,600 Union soldiers fought about 12,500 Confederates, Carol Kettenburg Dubbs wrote in her 2002 book, “Defend This Old Town.” The number of Union killed, wounded, captured or missing was 2,283. The Confederate figure was 1,870. The fighting moved north, while a Union brigade occupied the southern city. Confederate soldiers too wounded for travel were placed in homes and a church, which was converted into a hospital. A surgeon from New York treated them, while local women visited the church, Dubbs wrote. One woman noted in her diary on May 26 that there were “only 18 out of 61 left.” Their arms were crossed When the remains were discovered in 2023, they were aligned east-west in the Christian tradition, […]