The Unknown Warrior (28 page)

For the archaeologist we are presented with the problem that sleeping in the open air under a blanket or similar will generally, bar the odd fire pit or slit trench, leave little or no trace in the archaeological record. We are thus reliant on excavations of barracks sites or of castles and forts at which the soldier was stationed, such as those of the Napoleonic and Crimean. Examples include the wooden prefabricated barrack huts that were provided for the troops at Berry Head in 1803 (Armitage and Rouse, 2003: 2).

Excavation evidence shows that soldiers who served as the guard for prisoners of war at Portchester Castle (1794–1810) gained accommodation in a place of much former grandeur. They were billeted in the southern sector of the inner bailey at Portchester Castle – in the old hall range of Richard II. This dwelling included a brick-built cesspit and well and also a fireplace, and was drained by a brick-built fire sewer flushed with water from the castle moat (Cunliffe and Garratt, 1994: 49).

Barracks of the American Civil War could have been temporary, flimsy constructions.

Architectural drawings show that building superstructures rested on either brick footers or wood posts. Excavations at Fort Ward in Alexandria, Virginia, uncovered brick piers associated with that fort's barracks. Considering that buildings were temporary, it is likely that little effort went into their construction. Evidence supporting the inferior construction was the destruction of a barracks by a summer storm in 1865. (Balicki, 2003: 132)

Now the whole camp was studded with several hundred bell tents as white as snow and as regularly placed as if it had been the work of much labour and time. (Wheeler, 1999: 111)

Within fortifications or entrenched positions there was always the possibility of tents providing shelter for the soldier. Pollard's (2001: 234) archaeological examinations of the fort at Eshowe, Zululand, showed that such cover was included in the British supplies; finds included ‘tent hooks and brass eyelets, from tents or wagon tarpaulins: heavy iron wagon fittings, and an artillery shell …'.

Religion

In terms of artefactual evidence from archaeological sites, religion might be in the form of surviving religious texts, of inscribed devotional comments or the presence of the dead in cemeteries of a particular religious denomination, or with headstones to the same effect.

The religious affiliation of regiments is sometimes traceable through regimental chapels and the survival of nineteenth-century infantry colours in a particular cathedral or resting place. For example, the Queen's colour of the 24th Regiment of Foot, which was present at Isandlwana, is now in the Regimental Chapel of Brecon Cathedral. This standard was as important to British troops as was an Eagle standard to their nineteenth-century French counterparts or to Roman legions before them.

The presence of religious elements within the graves of the deceased is, perhaps, to be expected. On excavations at the bloody battle site of Antietam in the American Civil War (17 September 1862), which resulted in 23,000 soldiers being killed or wounded, Potter and Owsley examined one particular burial that had strong evidence for the Catholicism of the interred. The body was of a male aged 40–49 years with some arthritic changes. From his uniform and belongings it was inferred that the man was an infantryman of the Irish brigade that perished attacking Confederate positions at Antietam.

Three ‘Miraculous Medals' and a crucifix with five wooden rosary beads were found in a civil war grave from Antietam (found in 1983 in a field on a sunken road or bloody lane). The rosary beads and crucifix were in Grave 4, which had the following inventory:

11 30 cal. buckshot (unfired)

 3 .64/.65 cal. round balls (unfired)
13 percussion caps (unfired)

 4 plain-shield eagle coat buttons
1 New York State cuff button

10 tinned metal, 4 hole buttons

 1 white porcelain, 4 hole button
 1 small iron roller buckle
 1 knapsack hook
 1 brass, cap box finial
 1 brass, bayonet scabbard tip
 1 clasp knife
 1 miraculous medal
 1 crucifix with 5 wooden rosary beads
 1 .58 cal.
csa
Gardner bullet (fired)

 2 .577 cal. Enfield bullets (fired)

(Potter and Owsley, 2003: 62, table 4.1)

A knapsack tool and a roller buckle indicate this soldier was carrying his knapsack … A brass finial from the cap box and a brass bayonet scabbard tip suggest he was wearing his waist belt when he was buried … All of the soft-lead bullets – one .58 calibre Gardner and two .577 calibre Enfields struck bone, causing marked deformation in two of the slugs. It is very likely that these bullets caused the man's death. (
ibid.
: 63, 65)

Medicine

At six o'clock I took the knife in my hand, and continued incessantly at work till seven in the evening; and so the second and third day. All the decencies of performing surgical operations were soon neglected; while I amputated one man's thigh there lay at one time thirteen … It was a strange thing to feel my clothes stiff with blood.

(Charles Bell, surgeon, anatomist, on the subject of his work during the Battle of Waterloo, 1815; Howard, 2002: 126)

The nineteenth century saw a gradual change in the lot of wounded soldiers. Armies often had respected surgeons (though these frequently prioritised treatments for officers (see Howard, 2002: 44)), and the understanding of the nature of treatment of wounds and the requirements for more sanitary conditions for patients grew. Celebrated campaigners for the treatment of soldiers emerged, such as Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War and Clara Barton in the American Civil War. Although hospital conditions at Scutari in the Crimea left a huge amount to be desired, the lot of patients was beginning to be highlighted and thus improved.

Traces of an American Civil War period field hospital at Winchester, Virginia, have survived long enough to be excavated. This tent hospital had been ordered by Surgeon James T. Ghiselin on 22 September 1864 (Whitehorne
et al.
, 2003: 158), and fieldwork revealed ‘forty-one rectangular and two nearly square depressions [which] were identified as sub-floor features, constructed to serve as platforms for tent structures' (
ibid.
: 160). Limestone and handmade bricks on the site might also suggest the presence

of hearths and chimneys.

The infantryman was still often subject to virulent spreads of diseases, and much of an army's strength was often incapacitated through illness. The wounded were not deemed as important as fit troops, who could still influence the outcome of a battle, and their transportation to places of treatment was often archaic – in rickety carts and whatever else was available.

Essential stores in the panniers included ‘lint, surgeon's tow, sponges, linen, both loose and in rollers, silk and wax for ligatures, pins, tape, thread, needles, adhesive plaster ready spread, and also in rolls, opium, both solid and in tincture, submuriate of mercury, antimonials, sulphate of magnesia, volatile alkali, oil of turpentine, etc. etc.'. (M. Howard, 2002: 33)

The surgeons who worked close to or even on the battlefields of the nineteenth century had much to take with them in order to perform their allotted task. Some of this material has made its way into the archaeological record, but, as much is perishable, it is usually the containers that are recovered. Brixham Heritage Museum's excavations of the forts guarding the approaches to Torbay at the end of Berry Head have yielded medicine vials (see Berry Head Archaeology, 2000), while at another Napoleonic period site, Portchester Castle, parts of nine syringes (to deliver an enema) were found. These were common from
c.
1800, although they all predate the gravelling of the airing yard in 1810 (Cunliffe and Garratt, 1994: 117, fig. 33). This technique was one certainly known to be used by the nineteenth-century doctor: ‘Where all oral medications were seen to fail, and this was often the case, the army doctor might try other approaches, such as a variety of enemas, or the application of irritant substances to the skin to raise blisters' (Howard, 2002: 165).

Battlefield treatment was not always possible; recovering one's wounded comrades when under fire is still, today, a difficult action, and there were times when the wounded were simply left on the field to suffer often excruciating pain from ghastly wounds. Biting soft lead bullets was sometimes the only means available to ease their pain.

Mario Espinola's survey at Ox Hill recovered a .550 calibre Enfield bullet with a boxwood plug – a unique version of the Enfield pattern designed to provide a more snug fit with the barrel. Massachusetts units at the Battle of Ox Hill were armed with Enfield rifles imported from England, and it seems that a wounded soldier had bitten this bullet to alleviate some of the pain of his wound.

Casualties

I could not without pity and some degree of horror look at the desolating scene around me … the dead and dying lying about covered with blood, sweat, and dust looks frightful, the wounded some in their last agony begging for water, others writhing under pain calling on some one to shoot them.

(Wheeler, 1999: 32)

Casualty rates could be quite horrifying in nineteenth-century battles, though disease was generally a bigger killer than combat. For example, in the Crimean War, the British Army lost some 4,600 men in battle, while a further 13,000 were wounded and 17,500 died of disease. The casualties were just as bad in the Boer War, during which 45,000 Empire troops were reputed to have been killed. Single battles also had startling losses: ‘On the second day at Talavera the 24th Regiment had 343 casualties out of a starting strength of 787. At Waterloo the 28th Regiment had 253 casualties from 557 men' (Howard, 2002: 34).

Given the perception of the infantry as being ‘cannon fodder' in this period, the study of Howard into the medical profession of Wellington's Army is illuminating. He noted that, at least at the start of the nineteenth century, ‘Officers also had a greater likelihood than the private soldier of dying in battle. In the last three and a half years of the Peninsular War, when the British Army had a field strength of just over 60,000, the total annual mortality from battle, including fatalities on the field and later deaths from wounds, was 6.6% for officers and 4.2% for the ranks' (
ibid.
: 33).

Many of those men wounded in battle would have gone on to die in hospital, which is probably what happened to Unknown Warrior 12 (see pages 170–1), and many of the victims of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow: ‘At no point was there time to take care of the wounded. The most able-bodies had to advance as best they could; the rest found themselves in a hospital – and died there. This is what happened at Vilnius' (Bahn, 2002: 76).

With all the dreadful injuries inflicted by musket, rifle, cannon or sword, the stoicism displayed by the individual infantryman was often astonishing. Even taking into account a possible degree of exaggeration, there are many stories relating to private soldiers, such as this: ‘A private in the 92nd Regiment had his arm removed close to the shoulder by a cannon ball, but was still able to walk off the field and casually remark to Morris's Regiment, “Go on, 73rd, give them pepper! I've got my Chelsea Commission!”' (Howard, 2002: 37). ‘Chelsea' was a reference to the Royal Military Hospital in that part of London.

THE PRISONER

After a battle, the defeated soldier would face a couple of options if still alive; either he could attempt flight or otherwise he would be made a prisoner of war. This is, of course, assuming that his foe was willing to offer quarter. This was certainly not always the case in the wars of the nineteenth century. Private Wheeler wrote a chilling line on the actions of some of his Napoleonic War comrades: ‘If you knew but the hundredth part of the atrocities committed by men calling themselves British soldiers it would chill your blood' (Wheeler, 1999: 196).

The Zulu War also saw the killing of wounded and defeated by both sides, something attested to by both Zulu and British combatants. Private John Snook stated: ‘On March 30th, about eight miles from camp, we found about 500 wounded, most of them mortally, and begging us for mercy's sake not to kill them; but they got no chance after what they had done to our comrades at Isandlwana' (Emery, 1977: 173).

On the other side, a Zulu warrior, Muziwento, wrote of the British at Isandlwana: ‘Some covered their faces with their hands, not wishing to see death. Some ran away. Some entered into the tents. Others were indignant; although badly wounded they stood at their post' (Laband, 1985: 17).

According to historian John Laband, after the Zulu defeat at Khambula, the British pursuit of the fugitives was dreadful, resulting in many Zulu deaths. ‘It is well known that most of the dying Zulu expected no quarter (they usually gave none themselves), for they received none. Their pursuers were out to avenge Isandlwana and Hlobane only the day before, and as Major D'Arcy of the Frontier Light Horse exhorted his men: “No quarter, boys and remember yesterday”' (Laband, 1987: 28).

Those soldiers who were captured and incarcerated might have considered themselves to be, in some ways, fortunate. Archaeologically, we are able to denote the presence of prisoners on several sites. This can be registered through epigraphy, through the excavation of the prison camps, and through artefacts made by the prisoners themselves.

French prisoners of war from the Napoleonic period were held in several sites in England – at Norman Cross near Peterborough, Portchester Castle in Hampshire, and even in prison hulks (ships) in Portsmouth, reminiscent of Dickensian Britain.

Portchester Castle

Prisoners began to arrive at Portchester in March 1810 in the first instance decanted from the prison hulks in the harbour … the main influx took place between June and October, many of the men brought from the Mediterranean and from Portugal.

(Cunliffe and Garratt, 1994: 56)