Death at Snake Hill: Secrets from a War of 1812 Cemetery

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

This absorbing archeological account is part detective story, part
forensic study, and part historical re-creation. In 1987, there were
discovered at Ontario’s Fort Erie site skeletal remains that turned
out to be part of a graveyard of American soldiers killed 173 years
before, during the War of 1812. Though battlefield remains had been
found in the area previously, the 1987 discovery was unmatched in terms
of numbers of bodies and artifacts. Some skeletons were found with
musket balls still embedded. Other clues tell how individual soldiers
died, and describe their medical condition at the time. In one instance,
we actually get to see how one soldier may have looked in life. American
forensic anthropologist Kathleen Arries employed methods used by police
to identify anonymous murder victims, and reconstructed the probable
facial characteristics of one skull, dubbed “Grinner.”

The Fort Erie dig caught the imagination of Americans in particular,
and its progress was often reported in the U.S. media. The story ends on
a satisfying friends-across-the-border note: the ceremonial return of 28
U.S. soldiers’ remains to their final resting place in their native
land.

The three co-authors successfully avoided the hazards of a “book by
committee” and produced a clearly written account for academics and
general readers alike. Aficionados of Canada’s early military
adventures will appreciate the details brought out in this book, which
could be used by history teachers as a basis for a dramatic class
project on the War of 1812.