The archaeologists were actually about to call it a day when someone found a femur. The team, led by Rowan University history professor Jennifer Janofsky, investigated an ancient trench system in the township of Red Bank, New Jersey, that was part of Fort Mercer – the site of a historic Revolutionary War battle. The group had already found hundreds of artifacts, including a rare gold coin from 1766. And last but not least, the bone find that led experts to discover a mass grave containing the remains of as many as 13 people.
A gold guinea belonging to King George III, discovered during excavations at Red Bank Battlefield Park. The coin was equivalent to a soldier’s pay for one month.
(Photo: Matt Rourke/dpa)
“We didn’t expect to exhume human remains. That wasn’t the aim of the whole thing,” Janofksy is quoted as saying in a press release from the university. The grave was not marked on any map. The archaeologists suspect that the dead are German soldiers, whom they call “Hessians” – Hessen. The term is often used interchangeably in the United States for hired German soldiers who fought on the British side in the American Revolutionary War.
In order to put down the revolution that had broken out in their colonies from 1775, the English crown reinforced its army with soldiers from foreign powers. To this end, they concluded – as was still common in the 18th century – contracts with German princes on so-called subsidies, i.e. obligations to support them. Up until the Treaty of Paris in 1783, almost 30,000 German soldiers served the English king in this way during the war. They came from six German states, with the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel providing the largest contingent. With 15 regiments, their well-trained foot soldiers landed in the USA in 1776. At least 2,300 men lost their lives in the war. There’s probably a good dozen of them in the mass grave in New Jersey.
A Hessian-Kassel army under the command of Karl Emil von Donop took part in the spectacular Battle of Red Bank in October 1777. The British had previously defeated the Americans at Germantown in Philadelphia, turning the city into a large military camp. Then they began to secure the strategically important but difficult to navigate Delaware River. The revolutionaries entrenched themselves in two fortresses on its banks in the south of the city. Around 400 soldiers held out in the smaller Fort Mercer, opposite them was von Donop’s 2,000-strong force – a clear superiority.
On October 22, British warships opened fire on Fort Mercer and the Hessians charged its walls – to their doom. The slaughter lasted less than an hour, in the end 400 Germans were dead, fatally injured by Donop and the defenders held the fort – with a loss of only 14 men. Although the Americans gave up their positions a little later and lost Philadelphia, the unexpected victory at Fort Mercer went down in history.
Almost 245 years later, the bones of the fallen reveal just how gruesome the battle was. Archaeologists discovered wounds likely from musket shots and buckshot. “This trench gives a very different sense of the brutality of warfare,” says lead archaeologist Wade Catts. Next, the skeletons of the dead are to be examined to find out who the men were.