re: Newly discovered bodies of Revolutionary War soldiers in South Carolina

According to various sources I have searched, the Americans only lost 4,500 soldiers in battle. That is shocking to me, I figured it was at least 5 times that.

However, we did lose about 20,000 guys to disease and in POW camps. Back then dying from disease or to the elements was more common than dying to a rifle round or cannon ball. This is well documented from observers at the time. Americans were freezing and starving to death on the battle field. Many had no shoes and had to walk around barefoot, etc.

So it would be an extremely rare find for an archaeologist to find a soldier killed in battle who was not collected and properly buried at the time.