Confederate Graves Found At Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va.

From the May 5, 2014, Lynchburg (Va) News Advance "Archaeologists map Civil War-era graves at Old City Cemetery" by Katrina Koerting.

Four archaeologists are digging a 45-ft by 10-ft trench within "Yankee Square" at Old City Cemetery using shovels and brooms and dig down ten inches.  They have found Confederate graves in Yankee Square.

They want the cemetery staff to identify the boundaries of Yankee Square so they can match the site to a book that documents where soldiers were buried.  Once that is done, markers will be placed to identify those buried.

The search is being funded by a $2,500 grant from the Virginia Department of Historic Records.  Work began in April 2013.  In the first phase, 50 graves were identified of the 180 soldiers buried in Yankee Square.

Originally, just Union soldiers were buried there, but soon Confederates soldiers who had died of disease (usually small pox) were also interred.

The whole of Yankee Square is not being searched as red clay shows where the soldiers' hear or feet were and orange clay/soil means the site was untouched by burial.  The graves are aligned in rows and columns.

--Old Secesh