Stash Of Revolutionary War Era Bayonets Discovered In Valley Forge Park, PA

I work less than two miles from the famous Valley Forge National Park and saw this article last week which I find fascinating!

It appears that a cache of 30 bayonets from the Revolutionary War was discovered buried there, most likely during the time of the 1777-1778 encampment there under General George Washington.

These troops had very little in the way of equipment and uniforms so it's a little odd that they would throw away 30 good bayonets like that. The article mentions that they appear to have been for one type of musket but were had some sort of attempted modification to make them fit another musket, as nothing was universal or standardized in those days.

Some theories as to why they were left there:

1. Superior models had arrived from the French and these were obsolete
2. Someone buried them with the idea to come back for them but never did
3. They were buried as not to fall into enemy hands

quote:

ON THE LAST DAY OF an archaeological project near Valley Forge National Park in southeastern Pennsylvania, Dan Sivilich told his team not to expect to find a whole lot. Sivilich’s group, the Battlefield Restoration & Archaeological Volunteer Organization (BRAVO), had spent years helping archaeologists scour the site for artifacts. He figured there would be little left to find.

Quickly, one of the volunteers, who use metal detectors to locate artifacts and guide excavations, located a nine-pound cannonball hidden underneath a walking path. “He was so excited,” says Sivilich. “But he was the man of the day for about five minutes.” Bill Hermstedt, a long-time volunteer and charter member of BRAVO, also found something new—a bayonet. And then another. The signal from the detector told him that there was a lot more metal down there.

When archaeologists methodically opened the ground, they found a cache of 30 bayonets, stacked together—a remarkable find for a Revolutionary War encampment.

“I haven’t seen anything else like it in a single excavation. It looked like someone had dug a hole in the ground and threw them in there,” says Jesse West-Rosenthal, a Ph.D. candidate in archaeology at Temple University, who worked on the site and is writing his dissertation on the discoveries there. “It’s rare that you find large collections of intact material, especially something like weaponry. … To find this grouping of artifacts in one feature—someone putting a hole in the ground and putting the bayonets in the hole—it seems to be pretty unique.”

As Sivilich puts it, “No one has ever found this many together.”

Makes you wonder what else is under the dirt there! I had read somewhere that just due to nature that the ground level of the troops there in 1777-1778 is actually like a foot or more below what the current ground level is today.

A Stash of 30 Hidden Bayonets Was Discovered in Valley Forge

Posts: 35177 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007

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