In the News

[Scooby_308]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...est=latestnews


Workers Find Human Bones Underground at South Carolina College Campus
Tuesday , August 11, 2009


Workers repairing an underground steam pipe at the University of South Carolina in Columbia found human bone fragments — believed to be the eery relics of a Civil War hospital that once treated injured soldiers fighting for both the North and the South.
“We don’t know what it is,” Richland County Coroner Gary Watts told South Carolina newspaper The State, adding that the fragments found range from a skull cap to half-inch pieces.
“It probably is Civil War remains, but we’re still going to do this as if it were a crime scene,” Watts told the paper.
The coroner's office and the State Law Enforcement Division are excavating the steam pipe trench and examining the soil.
The coroner says he expects to know Tuesday if the remains are from the Civil War era. He has an anthropologist working on the case. Watts says the bones could be amputated body parts.
The fragments were found behind DeSaussure College, the second oldest building on campus. It was completed in 1809.
The building now serves as the offices of the college of social work on campus. It is named for the attorney from Sumter County who fought in the Revolutionary War.
Later, Henry William DeSaussure helped establish South Carolina College - now USC - during his 18 years in the Legislature, a university spokeswoman told The State.
During the Civil War, the school rented many buildings to the Confederacy as a hospital to treat the wounded from both sides of the battle.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


http://www.thestate.com/local/story/897027.html

Posted on Tue, Aug. 11, 2009
Civil War might echo in bones found at USC
Fragments at Horseshoe could date to 1860s
By CLIF LeBLANC
cleblanc@thestate.com
USC’s historic Horseshoe might hold a new and macabre piece of South Carolina’s past.
Workers repairing an underground steam pipe on Monday noticed human bone fragments behind the second-oldest building on campus, where a Civil War hospital once treated injured Confederate and Union soldiers.
“We don’t know what it is,” Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said of fragments that ranged from a skull cap to half-inch pieces. “It probably is Civil War remains, but we’re still going to do this as if it were a crime scene.”
The coroner’s office and the State Law Enforcement Division are excavating the steam-pipe trench and examining mounds of soil dug from it.
Watts said he expects to know by midday today whether the remains are nearly 150 years old. The coroner’s office has an on-staff anthropologist who is completing his doctoral work at USC.
University archivist Elizabeth West said she was taken aback by the find.
“Until today, President (James Rion) McKissick’s grave was the only known grave on campus,” West said. McKissick died in 1944 while serving as school president and is interred on the grounds of South Caroliniana Library on the Horseshoe.
The bone fragments were discovered behind DeSaussure College, completed in 1809, West said.
The building now houses the offices of the college of social work in the serene environs of the Horseshoe. It is named for the attorney from Sumter County who fought in the Revolutionary War. Later, Henry William DeSaussure helped establish South Carolina College (now USC) during his 18 years in the Legislature, a university spokeswoman said.
During the war between the states, the college closed as students left to fight the Union army, said West, the archivist.
The school rented many buildings to the Confederacy as a hospital to treat the wounded from both sides of the battle.
Because of the proximity of the hospital, the remains could be amputated body parts, West and Watts said.
“That was a very common practice,” the archivist said. “During that time, they could not save damaged limbs. It certainly would not surprise me if they buried them out back.”
The repair crew reported finding the bones about 11:30 a.m. in a parking lot behind DeSaussure, which is on the north side of the Horseshoe near McKissick Museum.
The coroner said the fragments were in mounds of dirt taken from a trench, which had been dug more than a week ago. Some bones also were found about 2 feet below ground level in the trench.
Rain showers last week must have washed away some of the soil, exposing the bones, Watts said.
The steam-pipe repairs are part of an upgrade of the heating system to some campus buildings, spokeswoman Karen Petit said.
Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.

[plankmaker]

I was involved in a kinda sorta similar situation some years back. They better hope that these don't turn out to be Injuns. That gets complicated quick.

http://www.nao.usace.army.mil/projec...20Reburial.pdf

Mark Campbell
Piney Flats, TN

[Regular DOC]

I hate this statement though. It continues the myth that all Surgeons did was hack off limbs.

“That was a very common practice,” the archivist said. “During that time, they could not save damaged limbs. It certainly would not surprise me if they buried them out back.”

["Doc" Nelson]

Brian, I totally agree. Unfortunately (and sadly), there are some in the hobby that teach this as the truth as well.

Something not a lot of folks understand is, the reason Surgeons were "beat up" like they were, came to be as a result of what happended during the Crimean War.

So, just as it is today, the mess-ups are what are brought to light, not the good things. Or at least, you'll hear more of the negative, than positive. Dr. Jonathan Letterman so heated over public critism, he wrote the following:

"The surgery of these battle-fields has been pronounced butchery. Gross misrepresentations of the conduct of medical officers have been made and scattered broadcast over the country, causing deep and heart-rending anxiety to those who had friends or relatives in the army, who might at any moment require the services of a surgeon. It is not to be supposed that there were no incompetent surgeons in the army. It is certainly true that there were; but these sweeping denunciations against a class of men who will favorably compare with the military surgeons of any country, because of the incompetency and short-comings of a few, are wrong, and do injustice to a body of men who have labored faithfully and well."

Yes, the first year of the war was terrible for the wounded, when it came to medical care. But, if one does research, they would understand that every department of the Army (equally) suffered greatly during the first year. There are a lot of myths about Civil War battlefield medicine. That's where "we" come into play, per se. As medical reenactors, with our knowledge from research (facts . . not the "well, if they'd had it, they'd used it" bullcrap), we need to dispel these myths (i.e. amputation without anesthesia being commonplace, an assistant holding a "conscious" patient down while the doctor sawed away, biting on a bullet during surgery, etc.). Although there were cases of it happening, it just wasn't a large scale . . if memory serves me correctly, there were something like 254 operations that anesthesia was not administered during surgery (out of approximately 80,000 operations, only about 30,000 were amputations, that's not bad for the period and medical knowledge at that time).

Surgeons did everything they could to save a limb, contrary to what you would normally "hear" from others, or read in some false history book. And not "every" Surgeon or Assistant Surgeon was permitted to operate (this duty fell to those of the best skill, usually broken down by Division). As for the assistants "holding" a patient as the doctor sawed away . . well, for anyone that knows the stages of anesthesia, they should understand that this "excitement phase" renders the patient "surgically unconscious" but the patient still retains motor skills and, did move about. The assistants "held" the patient steady so the doctor could perform the operation.

[Jas. Cox]

I just think it would be cool to be involved in this sort of historic archeological history. I'd like to be the official photographer.

[JohnSeever]

Has there been any more information on the bone fragments found on USC that might be from the Civil War?