America’s First Heroes: Revolutionary War Soldiers Reburied
April 14, 2023 10:10AM PDT
Forensic anthropologists, archeologists and volunteers prepare the remains of an unidentified Revolutionary War soldier killed in the Battle of Camden in 1780 for reburial on Thursday, 14 soldiers were removed from the battlefield, studied and analyzed and will be buried in a ceremony. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Historians and archeologists in South Carolina are preparing to rebury 12 unknown U.S. Revolutionary War soldiers who died in the 1780 battle at Camden.
The ceremonies starting April 20 are the result of months of work to carefully excavate the bodies from shallow graves, take DNA samples and study them, and give them a proper burial where they fell on the now-protected battlefield.
Several of the soldiers were teenagers.
Historians say they should be honored as America’s first heroes and that their sacrifice helped make the U.S. the country it is today.
A similar project is studying a dozen German soldiers, called Hessians, who died fighting for the British at Red Bank, New Jersey.
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