After 246 years, Pvt. John Pumphrey is unknown no more.Through DNA testing and old-fashioned sleuthing, the Maryland teenager who died in one of the last big battles of the American Revolution can now take his place in history, just in time for the 250th birthday of the nation he fought to create.“There was a sense of divine timing, I guess,” said Allison Peacock, founder of FHD Forensics, a company that helped with the search. “I don’t know what else you want to call it.”
Military personnel fold flags for the remains of 12 Continental soldiers killed at the Battle of Camden, S.C., during a memorial ceremony on April 22, 2023. (Historic Camden Foundation/via AP)
Pumphrey died Aug. 16, 1780, at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina. It was one of the Continental Army’s most devastating defeats, where British Gen. Charles Lord Cornwallis routed patriot forces under Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates.Many of the 900 killed were left where they fell, abandoned to the predations of wild animals, South Carolina’s scorching heat and its ruinous humidity.
Bones emerge from a Revolutionary War battlefieldArchaeologists surveying the area in 2020 came across human bones protruding from the ground. Eventually, 14 sets of remains were identified — 12 of them Continental soldiers. The others were determined to be connected to the British side and were reburied at the battlefield.
