A Maryland teenager who died at one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution has finally been identified 246 years later.
Researchers announced Thursday that remains pulled from the Camden battlefield belong to Pvt. John Pumphrey, a young soldier from Anne Arundel County whose death went unrecorded in 1780.
The remains—previously labeled Camden 9B—are the first of 14 recovered soldiers to receive a name.
Identifying Pumphrey took years of forensic work and DNA extraction from a small piece of his skull.
Archaeologists with the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology uncovered the 14 bodies in 2022 while protecting shallow battlefield graves from erosion. Uniform buttons found with the remains identified 12 of the dead as Continental soldiers, one as British and one as Loyalist.
Because Pumphrey died young and left no children, genealogists traced him through descendants of his siblings.
Records show Pumphrey came from a prominent Anne Arundel County family but left home for Baltimore before enlisting in January 1777. He reenlisted on Feb. 28, 1779, committing to serve for the war’s duration for $100.
Revolutionary War soldier identified after 246 years https://t.co/ey7lZHMle4
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His regiment fought at Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth before heading south to Camden.
At Camden, Pumphrey served under Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates, who was badly outnumbered by British forces. The August 1780 defeat killed hundreds, with Pumphrey among roughly 400 who died there.
His remains were reburied in 2024 at Camden’s historic Quaker Cemetery.
