One man came from Great Britain and another man from North Carolina. They fought for the King. The other twelve came from Delaware and Maryland and fought for the new country’s freedom.
Along with hundreds of other soldiers, those fourteen died the morning of August 16, 1780, in a pine forest a few miles north of Camden. According to custom, the British soldier’s body was placed six feet down, face up, with his hands crossed upon his heart. The corpses of the other thirteen were tossed into hurriedly dug shallow graves.
There they lay, forgotten. A hundred years passed, then two hundred years. For a time, the forest was replaced by a plowed watermelon field. Sometimes relic hunters came across a few bones which had made their way to the surface.
The forest returned. But there they still lay, forgotten.
Then, in the fall of 2022, fourteen sets of remains were located, examined, and then carefully and respectfully lifted from the soil which had held them for 242 years. Sciences such as forensics allow us to learn a lot about the fourteen, such as their ages and their diets.
April 22, 2023, fourteen handmade coffins bearing the remains of those veterans will be returned to the ground, properly this time, at the site of the Battle of Camden.
I will do volunteer work to prepare the parking areas and other facilities for the Camden Burials. Then I will attend the three days of festivities, beginning April 20, in Camden and at the Camden Battlefield. The organizers have asked me to offer a prayer over the remains when they arrive at Historic Camden on April 20. It’s my hope you will be present for The Camden Burials.
The Camden Fourteen were a small portion of the almost two thousand casualties at the Battle of Camden. Of the fourteen men, five were between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Learn the schedule of events and much more at CamdenBurials.com.