David R. Bush

Bush has been directing an archaeological study of the A few years later he initiated a program to bring in students from the fifth through twelfth grades for a one-day session. About 30 schools participate each year. Working under a big white tent, the students get down on their hands and knees and carefully evacuate one unit a two-meter square at a time. When they find something of interest, they are told to avoid the temptation to pull it out and see what it is.

A Story of Love and Hardship during the Civil War

Instead they carefully mark it and work around it to see if there are any other related pieces. They collect the soil in buckets and take it outside to sift it under supervision of Dr. Bush, his staff, and university students.


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Bush says items like pieces of glass, buttons, and nails are found on a daily basis. While I was there, a high school freshman found a glittering metal object, which turned out to be a gold hairpin, thought to be used to keep eyeglasses in place. Items of significance like this are numbered and cataloged.

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But the project is more than simply finding and identifying artifacts. Bush places great emphasis on integrating the archaeological findings with historical research, relying on such things as diaries and letters. Unearthing latrines at the camp. Lots, it turns out, including an officer's watch manufactured in Liverpool, England, in , and a gold locket that contained a lock of hair, probably from a child or a sweetheart.


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Such items could accidentally be dropped during a visit to answer a call of nature, just as modern Americans occasionally drop a cell phone into a toilet. The excavations also have shown that the men were allowed to keep pocket knives, even though they were in prison. Other objects were deliberately disposed of in the latrine, including whiskey bottles emptied by prisoners in a certain block of the prison — the ones holding those who had sworn allegiance to the Union to secure an early release.

They probably were not eager for the rest of the prisoners to know about their special privileges, Bush said. For 26 years, Bush has been leading students to the island to dig the latrines and learn about the prison.

I Fear I Shall Never Leave This Island: Life in a Civil War Prison

It's not as gross a scientific specialty at you might imagine. After years, it's just "rich soil," Bush said. Life in a Civil War Prison," still available in paper and ebook editions. For much of the war, life in the prison, exclusively used for holding officers, wasn't too bad, setting aside the risk of getting shot dead if you tried to escape. Drawn to the Deep Featured Book.

Friends and Descendents of Johnson's Island

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Voices from Mariel Featured Book. Son of Real Florida Featured Book. Life in a Civil War Prison. Bush works from their letters but provides insight based on archaeological investigations at Johnson's Island and some additional letters from other prisoners.