A long-buried episode from the Civil War is finally coming to light, as archaeologists and local historians search for the mass graves of Black soldiers killed in what is known as the Simpsonville Massacre. In January 1865, about 80 members of the Fifth US Colored Cavalry—all formerly enslaved men who had enlisted with the Union—were attacked by Confederate guerrillas while escorting cattle along what's now Highway 60 east of Louisville, Kentucky. The attack left 22 Black soldiers dead. Their remains were hastily buried in mass graves, likely two of them. As the New York Times reports, after the war's conclusion an effort to exhume and properly bury battlefield casualties began; Simpsonville was overlooked.
That changed thanks in large part to Jerry T. Miller, a former Kentucky lawmaker who stumbled across a reference to the massacre while digging into his ancestry nearly 20 years ago. He spearheaded the installation of a historical marker and memorial headstones, even though the exact gravesites remained unknown, and in 2023 asked University of Kentucky archaeologist Philip B. Mink to explore a soybean field owned by the Bryan family—descendants of local slaveholders who had heard family stories about Black soldiers graves on the property. Mink used radar and magnetometers to identify two suspicious humps in the field. Excavations, however, turned up only soil and rock. But Mink is undeterred. He hopes to return to the field with cadaver-sniffing dogs. (Read the full story.)
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