Secret Battlefield Linked to Young George Washington Unearthed in Pennsylvania After Centuries of Mystery
Discovering The Friendly Fire Site Near Fort Ligonier
Juniata College/FacebookArchaeologists, including volunteers from the Veterans Archaeology Program, excavate the site near Fort Ligonier.
The discovery of the friendly fire site was led by Jonathan Burns, an archaeologist and the director of the Cultural Resource Institute at Juniata College. Over the past four years, Burns and a team of archaeologists, including volunteers, narrowed in on the location of the site, which they believe is roughly two miles west of Fort Ligonier.
“As an archaeologist this is an exciting day for me,” Burns said as he announced the discovery of the site at the Fort Ligonier museum on July 11. “It’s not every day that you get to announce that you discovered a heretofore undiscovered Washington battlefield.”
Using metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar, archaeologists uncovered some 300 18th-century objects, including uniform buttons and buckles, musket balls, nails, and a French watch key.
Archaeologists are convinced that, more than 250 years ago, this was the site where George Washington narrowly survived a friendly fire incident during the French and Indian War.
“I’m here to say that we are pretty confident that we’ve done our due diligence here,” Burns stated. “We’ve covered multiple lines of evidence to present this body of work and make the claim that this has been found.”
Young George Washington’s Friendly Fire Battle
Mind meal/Wikimedia CommonsFort Ligonier today. Archaeologists believe that George Washington’s friendly fire incident took place roughly two miles west of the fort.
The friendly fire incident took place during the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763), which was part of the larger, global conflict known as the Seven Years’ War. Then, Washington was a 26-year-old colonel fighting on behalf of the British against the French. But on Nov. 12, 1758, he stumbled into a friendly fire incident that almost cost him his life.
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