Revolutionary War mercenary grave unearthed in New Jersey
Did you know? The Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 to 1783
Researchers at a Revolutionary War battlefield in New Jersey have unearthed a mass grave holding the remains of around a dozen Hessian mercenaries who died during the Battle of Red Bank in October 1777. Volunteer diggers also unearthed a number of treasures, including weapons and a rare 1776 King George III gold guinea coin.
The burial site was discovered on 26 June when a volunteer amateur archaeologist uncovered a human femur during the excavation of a defensive trench at Fort Mercer, which is part of Red Bank Battlefield Park in Gloucester County, southern New Jersey. “One of our volunteers who was digging said, ‘I think I have a bone,’” said Jennifer Janofsky, a humanities and social sciences professor and historian at Rowan University in New Jersey and the director of Red Bank Battlefield Museum. “I’ll never forget that moment. It was stunning. It was overwhelming. It was sad.”
All told, researchers unearthed the skeletal remains of about 13 Hessian soldiers, who were German soldiers hired to serve in the British Army. In addition to the human remains, the researchers also found five musket balls, pewter and brass buttons, grapeshot, lead canister shot, a knee buckle from a uniform that contained human blood stains and the gold guinea coin, equivalent to a soldier’s pay for a month’s work. The researchers from nearby Rowan University and officials from Gloucester County believe that there could be more remains at the site.
The Battle of Red Bank served as an attempt by the British Army and its Hessian mercenaries to overtake Fort Mercer, an American fort located along the shore of the Delaware River. They ultimately failed, and approximately 377 Hessian soldiers were killed or wounded during the fight, while the American forces only lost 14 troops. This imbalance deemed the battle the worst defeat the Hessians experienced during the Revolutionary War.
At present, all of the human remains that were uncovered in the Red Bank excavations are with the New Jersey State Police Forensic Unit and will undergo DNA extraction so that anthropologists can learn more about the soldiers. “We’re hoping that, eventually, perhaps we can find some of these individuals,” said Janofsky. “If we can extract their stories, and if we can tell their stories, it lets us put a name to a face. And that, to me, is a very powerful moment in public history.”