Effort Underway to Identify Colonial Williamsburg's Confederate Remains
Colonial Williamsburg asking descendants of South Carolina soldier to provide DNA to determine whether he was among 4 Confederates buried near Powder Magazine
Colonial Williamsburg asking descendants of South Carolina soldier to provide DNA to determine whether he was among 4 Confederates buried near Powder Magazine
(Civil War Picket) - 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…
I wouldn’t be giving up my dna for anything