Caveman? Apparently not
Talk about being on Cloud Nine – a paragraph from 150 years ago involving the two wars and an exciting find.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch September 23, 1861:
A genuine Relic of the Revolution.
–We are informed that not long since, some soldiers of an Alabama regiment, while excavating upon the old battle-field at Yorktown, not far from “Corawallis’s [Cornwallis’?] Cave, ” came upon the skeleton of a human being; and in the spot where a pocket should have been, lay a silver dollar. Our informant could not remember the precise date of the coin, though it was towards the close of the last century. It was undoubtedly the skeleton of a soldier of the revolutionary war. Many relics have been found beneath the soil of that celebrated battle-field, but this is the most remarkable one we ever heard of.
With a silver dollar in his pocket?
I didn’t realize how much fighting was involved in the Siege of Yorktown. Maybe the skeleton gave up the ghost during the storming of Redoubt #10. Spanish silver dollars circulated in the colonies.
You can take a virtual tour of Historic Yorktown at York County Virginia. If you click on Cornwallis’ Cave you can see a current image and read that
Contrary to the legend that describes this as Cornwallis’ hiding place at the end of the 1781 seige, it was probably used by a British gun crew to defend the river from the French Fleet. The site is National Park Service Property.
There are several photos at the Library of Congress that indicate that the cave was used by the Confederates as a powder magazine until they retreated in May, 1862.
Cornwallis' Cave in Union hands
Cornwallis' ditch deepened by Rebel General Magruder
Great eye contact - Mr Ed's ancestor?
