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Researchers have identified 33 of the Revolutionary War dead whose remains were moved to Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery: 28 Continental soldiers from Rhode Island and five British officers. At least 66 soldiers are believed to be buried there, so most of the British dead remain unidentified. A permanent memorial honoring the American and British soldiers was unveiled at the cemetery on September 23, 2026.
Who were the soldiers buried in the Wilmington grave?
The burial site holds remains from two groups brought to Wilmington under very different circumstances: British soldiers wounded at Brandywine in 1777 and Rhode Island Continental soldiers who fell ill after serving at Yorktown in 1781. They were initially buried in the Poor and Strangers cemetery. When Wilmington expanded in the 1850s, their remains were moved to what is now Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery.
The Smithsonian report says researchers identified 28 Continental soldiers and five British officers. The identified Americans belonged to the First Rhode Island Regiment; the British identifications are officers, not a complete list of British soldiers buried at the site. The report says at least 38 British soldiers are buried there, most still unidentified.
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Although all 33 names were read at the 2026 memorial ceremony, the Smithsonian report does not print the full roster. It names Private Caesar Rose, a Black soldier, and describes a document listing the 28 Continental soldiers, but that is not enough to reliably reconstruct every name. The five British officers’ full names are likewise not reproduced in the report.
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How did British casualties from Brandywine reach Wilmington?
The British soldiers were wounded at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The British established a hospital in Wilmington, about nine miles south of the battlefield. Two days after the battle, 112 wagons carried wounded soldiers to the city. The Smithsonian report says the hospital treated 488 wounded; those who died were buried in the Poor and Strangers cemetery.
Brandywine was a major one-day battle of the Revolution, with nearly 30,000 troops fighting, according to the report. The number of British dead buried in Wilmington is not a confirmed individual count. Local historian Bill Knightly said his team used algorithms to estimate expected deaths among the 488 wounded. He described the result as “38 deaths” from a “very, very conservative algorithm,” adding that researchers believed the actual number was higher. The report does not provide the algorithm, its inputs, or the individual primary records behind the British identifications, so the estimate should be understood as Knightly’s research rather than an independently verified tally.
Why were Rhode Island soldiers buried there years later?
The 28 identified Continental soldiers were members of the First Rhode Island Regiment who had fought at Yorktown in 1781. On their return, many contracted smallpox. Some received care at a Wilmington hospital, where 28 died between December 8, 1781, and January 27, 1782. They were buried in the same Poor and Strangers cemetery as the British soldiers.
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Their shared burial place therefore reflects two separate episodes of wartime illness and death, not a single battle or a single burial event. The remains were later relocated together as the city grew.
How were the soldiers’ names identified?
For the Continental soldiers, the Smithsonian report says researchers examined primary sources and found a document that lists the 28 men. It does not describe the archival process in enough detail to explain how each record was matched to a particular burial, nor does it reproduce the document or the complete roster.
The British research was led by local historian Bill Knightly. The report distinguishes that work from the algorithmic estimate: the algorithm was used to estimate how many of the wounded may have died, not to identify every person. It does not provide enough documentation to independently assess the identifications of the five British officers.
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What the identifications reveal about Black soldiers
Among the 28 Rhode Island soldiers, the report identifies ten free Black men and four enslaved laborers. Rhode Island lawmakers adopted an enlistment policy in 1778 amid a shortage of soldiers: enslaved men could enlist in exchange for freedom, and enslavers received compensation. The Smithsonian report says lawmakers repealed the policy a few months later, after more than 100 enslaved men had accepted the offer.
The City of Wilmington’s statement, quoted by Smithsonian, described the contradiction between military service and the limits of liberty in the era: “Black soldiers fought alongside white and Indigenous soldiers for American independence at a time when the nation’s promise of liberty did not extend to them. For those who enlisted while enslaved, military service also represented a path to freedom.”
Jason Roomes, a descendant of Private Caesar Rose, attended the memorial. As quoted by Smithsonian from WDEL News, Roomes said of Rose: “He went from a slave to a soldier.” The report names Rose but does not establish that his is the only individual story represented among the 28 men.
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Where is the grave, and what does the memorial recognize?
The soldiers’ remains now rest at Wilmington and Brandywine Cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware. Officials unveiled a permanent memorial there on September 23, 2026, and read the 33 identified names. The ceremony honored American and British dead together.
Wilmington Mayor John Carney said at the dedication: “For nearly 250 years, they have lain unknown and unremembered. For too long, their stories have been obscured and their final resting place overlooked. Today, that changes as we dedicate a permanent memorial on this hallowed ground in their honor.”
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Officials also read a poem by Adam Drummond, the father of one of the British soldiers. The excerpt reproduced by Smithsonian begins:
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His past, its past, the dread suspense is o’er
My dear my lovely soldier is no more
The murdrous gun in this unnatural strife
So surely aim’d has robb’d him of his life
And he to death has fallen an easy prey
Why did I live to see the fatal day
The memorial recognizes the 33 people identified so far while marking a burial site where the identities of many more remain unknown.
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