Before GI's: Original American Soldiers

As I work on Memorial Day, I was thinking about our original American soldiers and sailors who fought in the American Revolution.  My favorite being George Washington. But he gets enough press.

I would like to celebrate the soldiers who slogged through the mud but didn't get recognition. Men like Eleazar Phillips, who after being discharged from the militia in Charleston, served aboard the Wasp as a Steward and Purser under Capt. Bulfinch. Historical documents indicate he was present for the death Casimir Pulaski aboard the Wasp after the 1779 Battle of Savannah.  After being honorably discharged again, Phillips joined another militia company, serving in the Siege of Charleston. In May of 1780, he was taken prisoner for 12 months.

Phillips served for low, frequently late, pay with no promise of a pension or GI Bill. If the rebels lost.... Well, Ben Franklin said it best at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

The pages below are Martha Phillips' 1838 deposition, part of her application for her husband's pension.
Source: footnote.com

Before 1818, pensions were only awarded to officers or those killed or disabled. (Widows could apply for the pensions of deceased servicemen.) The Revolutionary War pensions records are available on footnote.com. These records, mostly from the National Archives, have been scanned and are searchable. Some records are available free of charge, or you can subscribe to have access to all of the records.

I highly recommend browsing through their stash. While old documents can be difficult to read, the software makes it as easy as possible.  The stories of the servicemen vibrantly come through the documents. And footnote has documents throughout the entire span on American history, so don't stop at the Revolution!

scrubbing without bubbles

I have not posted recently because I have been washing and rebagging artifacts. There isn't much to say about scrubbing tiny bits of ceramics and brick with a toothbrush. Do check out my (mildly) humorous video, "The Dungeon", about the process though.

But while this is not the most exciting part of doing archaeology, it is important. Washing away the dirt allows me to see the details of the object. Doing a preliminary sort while rebagging the clean artifacts makes analyzing the artifacts much easier. Also, I put the cleaned artifacts in special archivally-sound plastic bags. These bags do not give off nasty petrochemicals over time, like ordinary grocery store zip-locks do. These bags are part of how we keep the artifacts safe and preserved for generations, ensuring that future archaeologists will be able to restudy the artifacts. Remember, once an archaeological site is dug, it is gone forever. It is the archaeologists duty to preserve all of the artifacts, field records, maps, photographs, etc... so that the site can be restudied by future archaeologists with better technology. Or the data can be used to compare several similar sites to learn about the bigger picture of human behavior and cultures.

In other news, The Civil War Preservation Trust has announced the 2010 Most Endangered Civil War Battlefields, including Pickett's Mill Battlefield State Historic Site in Georgia. Check out their cool interactive map.  Or get involved through donation, becoming a member, or speaking out.

Metal detecting archaeologists

After the disastrous defeat in 1779, the allies fled past two (still present) Jewish Cemeteries where a regiment of Haitian volunteers protected the retreating soldiers. Earlier in the year, we did ground penetrating radar and shovel test pits over several acres of private property around the cemeteries. These property owners generously allowed us to harass them a second time, as we conducted a metal detector survey last week. The results of our survey can be found on the YouTube video, "The Retreat". There is also a two-part interview with Dan Battle, an archaeologist and our metal detector expert/consultant.

I have previously written about our difficulty in finding sites this fieldwork season. I have asked if any citizens out there have found Revolutionary War items in their backyards. (Email photos to curatorial@chsgeorgia.org). No one has responded. So we turned to the people who have found artifacts: the metal detector hobbyists.

Even being in the same room as "evil metal detecting looters" would send some archaeologists running for the hills. I would like to propose a more moderate, central position for both archaeologists and metal detectorists. First, there are many different attitudes among metal detectorists ranging from people who loot and sell artifacts for money to those who only collect on sites about to destroyed by development. Selling artifacts for profit is completely unethical for the professional archaeologist (see the Society for American Archaeology Principles of Archaeological Ethics). 

But what about sites that were destroyed and no archaeology was conducted? What if we could recover some information from a metal detectorists who hunted part of the 1779 Battle of Savannah retreat during a construction project? What if that information could be used to find more of the site and ultimately led to more site preservation?

Perhaps metal detectorists and archaeologists could work together on projects where archaeologists supply the methodology and scientific rigor, and detectorists supply the manpower and expertise with their machines. This has been wildly successful on the BRAVO project (Battlefield Restoration & Archaeological Volunteer Organization) which focuses on the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth in Freehold, NJ.  Dan Sivilich gave an excellent presentation at our 2010 Society for Historical Archaeology conference symposium, Revolutionary Steps: Marching Towards Research and Preservation. His notes are posted on our slideshare site.

Savannah is losing archaeological sites at an alarming, rapid rate. We all care about Savannah's history; let's work together to preserve and protect it. Archaeologists will have to admit that metal detectorists are more knowledgeable in certain areas. Metal detectorists will have to exchange learning new information for keeping bags of useless artifacts. (useless, of course, because they have been pulled out of the context). I think we can find a détente where we can save the last of the Revolution in Savannah.

Disagree with me? Fire away in the comments section.

Drinking the YouTube KoolAid

I finally caved and created a YouTube page for Savannah Under Fire, because I have a video and I want to spread the Savannah Under Fire love. You can see us working in Davant Park in this 4 minute video.

Find our YouTube page here. Know it, love it, watch it.

One musket ball, two musket balls?

We found a musket ball in Davant Park today!  Unfortunately, it was in a soil layer that was disturbed and mixed up. So it can't tell us anything about the Revolution. Visit us tommorow (Tuesday) at Davant Park to see if we've gotten deep enough to find the Revolutionary War soils layers.

Fieldwork Recommencement

We'll be kicking off two more weeks of fieldwork on Monday (April 19th). We will be returning to Davant Park, the area south of Colonial Cemetery where Lincoln St. dead ends into Perry Ln.

We are very excited about this location. Our historic maps indicate that ditchwork connecting two redoubts probably runs through this area. In October 2008, we did ground penetrating radar (GPR) in the southeast quadrant of Colonial Park Cemetery and in Davant Park. Our GPR guru Dan found a large, linear anomaly running northeast/southwest throughout this area. This means that there is some natural or cultural ditch running through this area. Monday we will be digging some test units (1 by 2 meter squares) to see if this ditch is really from the American Revolution.

This is a GPR image of Davant Park. North is up. Each tick mark is one meter. 

(Figure 122 from our technical report)

Another advantage of doing GPR before digging is that we are able to "see" graves. Dan mapped numerous unmarked graves within the walls of the cemetery. Unmarked graves are very common in old graveyards, and the graves frequently extend beyond the marked edges of the cemetery. But surprisingly, there were no graves south of the Colonial Cemetery's brick wall.

Stop by and we'll give you a tour!

Visit Camp Lawton this weekend

This is a great opportunity to visit a cool archaeology site near Savannah. Two of Savannah Under Fire's own have worked on this project: Dan Elliott and Matt Luke. (hi guys!) The Camp Lawton dig is at Magnolia Springsa State Park. You can visit the dig on April 17 and May 1. Other dates will be posted on www.gastateparks.org/MagSpr or call 478-982-1660.



I'm passing along the article below (verbatim) from the Georgia Preservation Online newsletter.

Archaeological investigations have begun at Camp Lawton in Magnolia Springs State Park near Millen, Georgia. The excavations are the result of a partnership between the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Georgia Southern University.

Camp Lawton was established during the Civil War in the fall of 1864 by the Confederate Army to house Union prisoners of war at Magnolia Springs in order to take advantage of the abundant water supply. Built by slave labor of pine timber harvested on site, the walls measured 12 to 15 feet high. The stockade began receiving the first of at least 10,299 prisoners in early October. The post was abandoned by the end of November when threatened by Sherman’s drive on Savannah. The prisoners were transported to other, safer, locations. On December 3, 1864 Sherman’s forces took possession of Millen and Camp Lawton. The depot (and likely the stockade and all support structures) was burned by his men.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) conducted in December 2009 by the Lamar Institute revealed a possible location for the southwest corner of the prison stockade. Georgia Southern University has begun archaeological investigations to “ground truth” the results of the GPR survey. State archaeologist and Historic Preservation Division director Dave Crass said, “The results of the survey and testing will aid DNR in interpretation and future investigations at the Park.”

The public is invited to view the progress of the excavations at the park on April 17 and May 1. Other dates will be posted on www.gastateparks.org/MagSpr or call 478-982-1660.