‘Limb pit’ reveals bitter choices made by Civil War-era surgeons

WASHINGTON — Side by side, in a shallow pit, two soldiers were hastily buried — and along with them, not flowers or mementos, but 11 arms and legs.

The limbs belonged to the fallen soldiers’ comrades, according to archaeologists, and were likely gathered from the amputation tables of deluged Union Army surgeons on a Civil War battlefield and buried there.

The remains, discovered in 2014 and excavated in 2015 from Virginia’s Manassas National Battlefield Park, mark the first discovery of an intact surgeon’s “limb pit,” the National Park Service announced Wednesday. Experts say the finding is a pivotal development in understanding combat injuries and medical practices in wartime in the mid-19th century.

“So much of our focus has been on the battle itself. This provides insight into what happened after the battle,” said Brandon Bies, the superintendent of the battlefield park.

One skeleton, of a Caucasian male in his late 20s, still had a .577-caliber Enfield bullet — which was deployed almost exclusively by the Confederate Army during that battle — lodged sideways in his upper thighbone. Scientists believe the bullet slowed and rotated after passing through his cartridge box.

The second skeleton is of a male in his early 30s, believed to have died from rounds that struck his shoulder, groin and lower leg. Those remains were found with Union Army jacket buttons.

Isotope analyses revealed that during bone formation, both men had consumed food and water from Northern states.

“We use chemistry and forensics to tell their gender, their age, where they’re from, what happened,” said Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist.

Eleven smaller bone fragments excavated from the site have helped anthropologists understand surgical techniques. Many of the limbs had clean-cut cross-sections at the thigh. “It looks just like someone took a saw and cut across a tree branch,” Bies said.

In contrast, injuries to the skeletons without amputations revealed the triage process. “These surgeons had to work quickly and make decisions without great supplies or resources,” said Katie Liming of the National Park Service. “These two almost-full sets of remains, buried hastily, tell us surgeons saw these men and said, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’”