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A Highlander Found After 250 Years
There are times when something or someone forgotten has been found. In this story old enemies were found together beneath the dirt and pine straw of South Carolina.
From the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust:
Since early November 2022, the Richland County Coroner’s office has been carefully working to prepare the remains for permanent burial and to collect information on the soldiers’ biological sex, age-at-death, stature, cause of death, and burial positions. Previous field work and artifacts recovered during the 2022 excavations indicated that remains were those of twelve Continental soldiers of the Maryland and Delaware regiments, one British Loyalist of a North Carolina regiment, and one Scottish Highlander 71st regiment.
The initial findings revealed that five of the soldiers were teenagers. This discovery says quite a bit about the composition of the Continental Lines from Maryland as they made their way with Baron de Kalb to engage in the Southern Campaigns. The oldest was estimated to be 40 – 50 years old. They ranged in stature from five feet two inches to more than six feet tall, with many being in the range of five feet, seven inches. While not all of the soldiers revealed evidence of traumatic injury, others were uncovered with clear evidence of battle injuries from musket balls and buck shot. The Scottish Highlander was the only soldier who appears to have been carefully laid to rest, face up with arms crossed. Others were found to be face down or overlaying each other.
They will be reinterred together with the exception of a Native American whose remains will be returned to the Catawba Nation for a private ceremony.
The Scottish Highlander will remain in the United States and will rest with the American soldiers.
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Published in Military
I saw the video. Very touching . . .
Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed the video, and appreciate learning something new about the Battle of Camden and the American Revolution.
BTW – it makes sense that the Scottish Highlander was buried carefully and with respect. Camden was a British victory, and those “cleaning up” the battlefield afterwards would have been work details of other British soldiers and Loyalist militiamen. That they’d take more care with a fallen comrade, and less care for simply getting the bodies of disloyal rebels into the dirt as fast as possible is not hard to understand.
This is incredible. Thank you for sharing.
Naturally, they didn’t find the bones of any other Highlander because… There can be only one.