Two years after remains of Revolutionary War Hessian soldiers were found next to Red Bank Battlefield, here is what’s been learned

Two years ago, Rowan University researchers, alongside Gloucester County officials, revealed that they had recovered the remains of Revolutionary War Hessian soldiers next to the Red Bank Battlefield in New Jersey.

What had started as a routine public archaeology dig that summer, with more than 100 people, including Rowan University students, suddenly took a surprising turn when a union electrician came across a human femur.

Since then, a team of researchers, including Rowan historian Jen Janofsky and adjunct professor Wade Catts, as well as those from Dartmouth, the University of Georgia and Utica University, have been trying to learn more about the soldiers who were hired by the British to fight in the American Revolutionary War nearly 2½ centuries ago and lost their lives during the historic Battle of Red Bank on Oct. 22, 1777.

» READ MORE: Human remains of what are believed to be 13 Revolutionary War Hessian soldiers found next to Red Bank Battlefield, N.J.

“It’s been a whirlwind two years,” Janofsky said at a news conference. “It’s been so exciting to see the amount of attention the project has received.” She cited the support of Gloucester County as critical to the work.

Hampered in part by the poor condition of the nearly 250-year-old remains, researchers have not been able to learn the identity of the soldiers, though they remain determined. Two years ago, they announced they had found the remains of 13, but on Wednesday, said two more had been discovered, raising the number to 15. And they said that there could be more remains at the site but that excavating them would be increasingly difficult and they were not pursuing that.

Also on Wednesday, the university released a New Jersey State Police sketch of one of the soldiers, reconstructed from his skull. The sketch features a young man wearing a cone-shaped headdress, hair down to his neck. The skull is one of two complete crania found in the 4½-foot-deep trench system that surrounded the battlefield’s Fort Mercer and is now among the items featured in an exhibit at Red Bank’s Whitall House.

Rowan researchers said buttons from the garb were actually found during the dig but the rest was reconstructed, based on an interpretation of the uniform that researchers believe he would have been wearing.

Utica University forensic bioarcheologist Thomas Crist and State Police forensic archaeologists Anna Delaney and Stuart Alexander have discovered that the soldiers were young to middle-aged white men of European descent by examining their bone fragments and teeth, the university said.

Dartmouth anthropologist Raquel Fleskes, who runs Historical Genomics Lab, is trying to learn more by testing DNA from two petrous bones, from the base of the skull, which are one of the hardest in the body and usually have well-preserved DNA, the university said. Janofsky said they expect news by the end of the year on the quality of the DNA that can be extracted.

A team from the University of Georgia is performing a “stable isotope analysis” of the soldiers’ teeth to understand more about their diet and possibly figure out the region of Germany or another country that they came from.

Rowan students have continued their involvement, including through a digital photography project and internships at Red Bank, as well as intensive summer courses at the park. And Bob and Martha Gilliam, a couple from Clarksboro, have donated $20,000, the first private gift to support the research, the university said.

“The search for someone’s identity, lost to history, touches something deep in the human experience,” Janofsky said in a statement. “As a public historian, I want to complicate people’s understanding of ‘the enemy.’ I want the public to have a deeper connection to the battlefield. I want them to experience historical empathy. I want them to see these remains as human beings. Our project has done just that.”

She said she hopes at least one of the soldiers can eventually be identified.

“We will exhaust all resources to try to make that determination,” Janofsky said during a news conference.

That’s even though Germany’s government, according to Janofsky, hasn’t expressed interest in the remains. But the German War Graves Commission is supportive of the work, she said.

Learning the soldiers’ identities is what inspired Gilliam, a 1988 alumnus and chairman of Vanguard Adjusters Group Inc., based in Woodbury, to donate.

“The idea that we could some day take a trip to Germany and knock on the door of a descendant is just amazing,” he said in a statement. “There’s a story here everyone can learn from.”

Also recovered during the dig two summers ago were about 100 objects, including a 1776 British gold guinea, a soldier’s monthly pay — which researchers called extremely rare — as well as pewter and brass buttons, a uniform knee buckle with human blood, and musket balls at the mass burial site next to the 44-acre battlefield, operated by Gloucester County as a park along the Delaware River.

Catts noted that similar discoveries have been made in recent years at sites in Lake George, N.Y., Connecticut and South Carolina, and Rowan researchers are working with folks there to learn more.

During the Battle of Red Bank, American soldiers pulled off a surprising victory. It was important because protecting Fort Mercer meant delaying the British from getting supplies up the Delaware River to Philadelphia. About 2,000 Hessian soldiers were fighting for the British during the battle, while American forces, including soldiers from Rhode Island and the New Jersey militia, numbered only 500, according to historians. Yet the Hessians lost about 377 soldiers, compared with only 14 American deaths.

There was no indication based on historical records and previous surveys that a burial ground would have been there, officials said. Uncovering such mass grave sites from the war is extremely rare, Janofsky had said in 2022. All such sites were thought to have been uncovered by the early 1900s.

But in 2020, Gloucester County bought a quarter-acre wooded site, which included a part of the trench. Janofsky got a $19,000 New Jersey Historical Commission grant to conduct the initial dig there, as well as a public education and outreach program.

The university said that since the discovery, nearly 400 people have taken part in public dig days at the site and that Janofsky and Catts have given more than 20 public presentations.

Rowan students and other park volunteers will give tours of the site on Aug. 10, 17 and 24, the university said. Online registration is required by starting at the county’s website at www.gloucestercountynj.gov. Visitors must create a website account (top of the page) and click the “activities” tab to go to the registration site.