Two years after the surprising discovery of the remains of 15 Hessians buried at Gloucester County’s Red Bank Battlefield Park, a New Jersey State Police sketch has given a human face to one of the soldiers killed in the landmark 1777 Revolutionary War battle.

Meanwhile, led by Rowan University Public Historian Jen Janofsky and adjunct Wade Catts, a national team that includes forensic anthropologists and bioarcheologists, historians and experts in DNA and stable isotope analysis is working to learn more about the soldiers who gave their lives fighting for the British crown against outnumbered-but-emboldened Patriot forces. 

Moreover, a Clarksboro couple has given a financial gift to support research that they hope could possibly ultimately help identify one or more of the soldiers. And Rowan students have been intimately involved in both telling the story of the Hessian soldiers and in digitally preserving the remains for study by scholars internationally.

“A diverse group of people have committed their time, energy and expertise to moving this project forward,” says Janofsky, director of Red Bank Battlefield Park. “The search for someone’s identity, lost to history, touches something deep in the human experience.

“As a public historian, I want to complicate people’s understanding of ‘the enemy.’ I want the public to have a deeper connection to the battlefield. I want them to experience historical empathy. I want them to see these remains as human beings. Our project has done just that.”

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