Feds Quietly Dig Up 67 Civil War Graves
Working in secret, federal archaeologists
have dug up the remains of dozens of soldiers and children near a Civil
War-era fort after an informant tipped them off about widespread
grave-looting.
The exhumations, conducted from August to October, removed 67
skeletons from the parched desert soil around Fort Craig - 39 men, two
women and 26 infants and children, according to two federal
archaeologists who helped with the dig.
They also found scores of empty graves and determined 20 had been looted.
The government kept its exhumation of the unmarked cemetery near
the historic New Mexico fort out of the public's eye for months to
prevent more thefts.
The investigation began with a tip about an amateur historian who
had displayed the mummified remains of a black soldier, draped in a
Civil War-era uniform, in his house.