Archival and Geophysical Investigations to Locate a Civil War Cemetery and Railroad Station, Fort Lee, Virginia

In September, 2008, the Cultural Resources Management Program (CRMP) at Fort Lee, Virginia requested assistance from the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in identifying a Civil War cemetery believed to have been located on what is now Fort Lee. One of the few clues about the cemetery’s location was that it was near Meade (or Meade’s) Station, a United States Military Rail Road (USMRR) station constructed during the Civil War. It was thought that locating the railroad alignment was a logical first step in finding the cemetery. Archaeological remains of the railroad could include an embankment, concentrations of artifacts (e.g., spikes or rails), imported gravel and soil, or evidence of soil removal. Meade Station was expected to be a more difficult property to identify. Given the station’s brief existence, it could be represented in the archaeological record primarily by a relatively small concentration of postholes and artifacts, which might have been destroyed or obscured by subsequent construction on the site. The cemetery was viewed as the most challenging target, given its brief existence (most or all graves were thought to have been moved), and the expected absence of stone markers or substantial coffins.