Press release from Gloucester County Board of Freeholders
On Oct. 4, The Whitall House at Red Bank Battlefield will be hosting historian Bob Selig at the Clayton auditorium as he discusses the overlooked topic of military burial practices and battlefield clean-up along the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail.
The talk, starting at 7 p.m., will allow for attendees to get a deeper look into how death on the battlefield was handled in the past compared to now.
Freeholder Director Robert M. Damminger said, “The topic of how the dead were buried in warfare during colonial times can provide answers to some of the history at Red Bank Battlefield.”
Selig’s talk will cover a wide variety of questions including who disposed of corpses, how we can tell who buried whom, when they were buried, how many hours, days, or months later they had been buried, where, ranks of the deceased, how we identify them, and many more questions relating to Red Bank and other sites located along the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail.
Freeholder Frank J. DiMarco, Liaison to the Department of Parks, said, “One of the goals of Red Bank Battlefield Park is to inform residents of the history of our county. While the topic may seem a bit morbid, it is a way to get an even deeper look into our history.”
Robert A. Selig is a historical consultant who received his Ph.D. in history from the Universität Würzburg in Germany in 1988. Since then he has published a number of books on the American War of Independence Selig also served and serves as Project Historian for American Battlefield Protection Program projects such as the “Battle of Princeton”, “Battle of Green Spring and Spencer’s Ordinary”, the “Paoli Massacre”, “Battle of the Clouds”, “Battle of Red Bank”, “Battle of Bennington”, “Battle of Hubbardton” and the “Battle of Brandywine”. He has been a regular contributor to German Life magazine for over 20 years and has also published more than 100 articles in American and German scholarly and popular history magazines as well as chapters in various books and anthologies.
Partial funding for this program provided by The National Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route Association (www.W3R-US.org), trail partner to the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail.
The event will be held at the Office of Government Services Building located at 1200 N. Delsea Drive, Building A.
