by The Battle of Camden was a decisive win for Lord Corwallis in his southern campaign during the American Revolution. He only lost 68 men compared to almost 900 Americans killed or wounded. Last year, the remains of 13 soldiers – 12 American and 1 British – were found by archaeologists working on the battlefield. They were just recently reinterred in a joint ceremony featuring both soldiers from the US Army and a contingent from 2 Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland. The lone British soldier was thought be from the 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders.
The British military’s news service, Forces News, just did a video story on the find by the archaeologist and the ceremony to reinter the bodies with the honor and dignity that they deserve.
More on the archaeological dig by the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA), the University of South Carolina, the Richland County Coroner’s Office, and the SC Department of Natural Resources can be found in this story by The State.
It noted of these fallen who will finally be laid to rest with the honor and dignity that they deserve:
Suffering 900 casualties, the Americans fled in defeat. According to legend, some didn’t stop until they reached North Carolina. Their abandoned dead were thrown into communal graves, arms and legs intertwined, to lie in anonymity.
For more than two centuries, they did not rest peacefully. Wild hogs rooted through the shallow graves. The land was farmed and logged. Tractors drove over the graves, compressing dirt and clay and crushing bone that lay sometimes just inches below the surface.
The Post and Courier of Charleston gives an American perspective of the ceremonies in the following video:
