The James Arnold-William J. Rotch Mansion (NBE.6) was built in 1821 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, within the territory of the 1778 Battle of Bedford-Fairhaven, also known as Grey’s Raid. The property is located within the County Street Historic District (NBE.A), a National Register District in New Bedford, as well as the Bedford-Fairhaven Battlefield District, an area inventoried in MACRIS within the bounds of the City of New Bedford (NBE.H). In 2022, the James Arnold Mansion, Inc. (JAMI) was awarded an American Rescue Plan (ARPA) Cultural Facilities –COVID Mitigation Grant to undertake a series of landscape alterations to the Grounds to increase the use of outdoor spaces, spurring three seasons of archaeological survey by Bridgewater State University, starting in Summer 2023. This presentation will outline the results of these excavations, and their implications for public-facing archaeology in southeastern Massachusetts.

Fort Gratiot was a United States military post located near the confluence of Lake Huron and the St. Clair Rier in what is today the community of Port Huron, Michigan. It was originally built during the final year of the War of 1812 to control this vital transportation artery to the upper Great Lakes. Abandoned in 1821, and allowed to fall into ruins, the fort was rebuilt in 1830 where it guarded the international border with Canada for the next 49 years, evolving to meet the changing needs of the U.S. Department of War. This presentation is an overview of the historical and archaeological discoveries made at the site of Fort Gration during investigations conducted over the past 50 years.

Fifty-four years after the Black Hawk War of 1832 the inhabitants of Stephenson County, Illinois, erected a limestone memorial for the fallen militiamen at Kellogg’s Grove, the location of a repurposed frontier settlement that was attacked by Black Hawk during the war. While there is no direct mention of it on the monument, historical records show that at its dedication a box containing the remains of 14 people who were exhumed from battlefield graves throughout the county were reinterred at the monument’s base. Curiously, the monument itself lists 23 names of fallen militiamen. Adding to the confusion, in 1939 19 headstones were placed at the monument, which today are considered by locals to be the people buried at the memorial. This presentation untangles the question of who is actually buried at Kellogg’s Grove, and also tracks an MIA from the conflict, who may have been found decades after the war.

“Indians and Negroes, with a slight sprinkling of White Troops” is how an observer described Union troops gathering at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, before the 1863 Battle of Honey Springs. “Indians with a slight sprinkling of White troops” would have described their rebel antagonists in that fight—still, much of the recorded memory of the battle centers on the voices of White soldiers. Battlefield-scale archaeology is combined with a careful parsing of the memory of the battle and systematic terrain analysis to interpret this event in a way that I hope would be equally recognizable to all participants. I specifically address how recorded memory does and does not address Black and Indian agency in this battle, an explanation of a seemingly imbalanced archaeological footprint of fighting at the initial rebel line, and discuss the implications of metal arrowheads found on the battlefield.

In the 19th century American West, serving at frontier outposts brought both real and perceived hardships to both enlisted men and officers in the U.S. Army. Intentionally established in more remote areas, these posts served to expand the reach of American imperialism while functioning as microcosms of Victorian era society. At Fort Walla Walla, an attempt to conform to the era’s larger ideals of class, gentility and domesticity can be seen through the use of certain goods. The analyis of ceramic vessels marked with the crossed-saber insignia of the U.S. Cavalry, also known as regimental wares, has provided some insight into how social hierarchies were reinforced through dining practices at the post. Exploring how these practices may have varied between the post's enlisted men and its officer class is one avenue of research currently being pursued through an archaeological survey of several outlying households that once occupied the fort’s periphery.