+

In 2016, five days after + Thanksgiving, Margaret Corbin’s grave was dug up for the second time since her death in + 1800. It began by accident. Contractors were working on a retaining wall near the West Point Cemetery, + at the U.S. Military Academy, when a hydraulic excavator got too close and chewed through the grave.

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As soon as they noticed bones spilling from the soil, they alerted the + military police. The plot was quickly cordoned off, her monument was wrapped in tarp, and rumors started + to spread about Corbin’s resting place—that is, if it even was her resting place. + When forensic archaeologists arrived at the scene, they were perplexed: The bones seemed oddly large. +

+

The monument to Margaret Corbin is West Point’s only monument to a + woman veteran, and it greets visitors near the main gate, just feet from a neoclassical chapel. It faces + Washington Road, where the Academy’s top brass live, and depicts Corbin in a long dress, operating + a cannon as her long hair and cape fly in the wind. She wears a powder horn and holds a rammer to load + cannonballs; the rest of the rather cramped cemetery sprawls out behind her. The monument portrays the + moments before Corbin became a prisoner of war.

+
On the West Point monument, Corbin wears a long dress and a powder horn, and she operates a cannon while her long hair flies in the wind. +
On the West Point monument, Corbin wears a long + dress and a powder horn, and she operates a cannon while her long hair flies in the wind. Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo
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The story goes that Corbin joined her husband, John, to fight in the + American Revolution. At the time, many women followed their husbands to war, where they were commonly + known as “camp followers.” Typically, they foraged for food, cooked, and did laundry. Before + Martha Washington was the United States’ first first lady, she was also a camp follower. In fact, + she and Margaret were with the same company—though the two experienced different lives, since + George was a general, and John manned a cannon.

+

At the Battle of Fort Washington, on November 16, 1776, in what is now + Washington Heights, the British and Hessians advanced far enough to make the Continental Army’s + position untenable. George Washington retreated with his forces to White Plains; John Corbin was shot + dead at his cannon. But Margaret was there to jump into John’s position and help fire the cannon. + During the battle, her jaw and shoulder were seriously injured, and grapeshot tore off part of her + breast. Despite the Continental Army’s efforts, the fort was soon surrendered, and Corbin was + captured along with approximately 2,837 soldiers.

+
A watercolor by Thomas Davies depicting the attack on Fort Washington by the British and Hessian Brigades. Margaret Corbin was taken prisoner after fighting in the battle. +
A watercolor by Thomas Davies depicting the attack + on Fort Washington by the British and Hessian Brigades. Margaret Corbin was taken prisoner after + fighting in the battle. Alamy Stock Photo
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The British may have been unsure what to do with an injured woman, because + she was released fairly soon after the battle. The ordeal was one of many traumas in her life: According + to records collected by the historian Stella Bailey, + Margaret was only five years old when her father was killed in a conflict with Native Americans in + Pennsylvania, where they lived. Her mother was kidnapped, and Margaret and her brother moved in with an + uncle. They never saw her again.

+

After Corbin’s return, she joined the Corps of Invalids, a group of + wounded soldiers that were still able to contribute to the war effort. They were stationed at West + Point, New York, where Corbin became known as a cantankerous woman who had a tough time making a home + for herself in the neighboring village of Highland Falls. She moved between various local families who + tried to care for her. Having witnessed her husband’s death and sustaining wounds, she was + probably in constant mental and physical pain.

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When Margaret Corbin + died in 1800, she was buried in a pauper’s cemetery in Highland Falls, just three miles + from West Point. But in 1926, the national society of women known as the Daughters of the American + Revolution saw to it that Corbin would earn her vaunted cemetery plot. The society, which is made up of + women who can trace their lineage to participants in the American Revolution, was celebrating the + sesquicentennial of American independence, and saw Corbin as the consummate symbol of both their + organization and the Revolution. A year-long effort convinced the U.S. Military Academy to help them + exhume and transport the remains to the prestigious cemetery, to be reburied with a military funeral. +

+
This sign directs visitors to the United States Military Academy to the purported site of Margaret Corbin's grave. +
This sign directs visitors to the United States + Military Academy to the purported site of Margaret Corbin’s grave. Ahodges7 / + CC BY-SA 3.0
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Exhumation was not a simple task: By the time the DAR began their campaign + to move Corbin, the location of her exact burial was known only by word-of-mouth, passed down through + generations. In collaboration with West Point, the Daughters found the great-grandson of the man who + supposedly dug Corbin’s original grave, a steamboat captain by the name of Farout. Her burial site + was apparently marked by the stump of a cedar tree; during the exhumation process, the gravedigger + accidentally drove the shovel through the skull. Still, the Army Surgeon reported injuries to the + skeleton that were consistent with grapeshot. The remains were given a new, flag-draped casket and + delivered to West Point by horse-drawn hearse.

+

Every year since then, the Daughters have gathered at Corbin’s + monument for Margaret Corbin Day. On the first Tuesday of May, the Daughters fill the chapel, share + Corbin’s story, sing hymns, and stand at the grave while soldiers perform a 21-gun salute.

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A horse-drawn hearse carried a flag-draped casket that was said to contain Corbin’s remains. +
A horse-drawn hearse carried a flag-draped casket + that was said to contain Corbin’s remains. Daughters of the + American Revolution
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+

After the U.S. Military Academy unintentionally reopened the grave beneath + Corbin’s monument in 2016, they decided to conduct an emergency forensic archaeological + excavation. They enlisted the help of Elizabeth A. DiGangi, an anthropology professor at Binghamton + University, and Michael K. Trimble, an archaeologist for the Army Corps of Engineers. Almost + immediately, the pair noticed that the size of the bones didn’t match Corbin’s description. + Corbin was reportedly a stout woman. “One of the first bones I saw when I was on site was the + humerus, or upper arm bone,” DiGangi says. “It was very large, which is not what you would + expect with an arm bone from a woman.”

+

DiGangi took the remains to her laboratory at Binghamton University to do a + full analysis. Some worried that other remains were mixed up with Corbin’s. (In the past, West + Point has discovered unknown remains when they’ve broken new ground for construction.) Ultimately, + DiGangi’s analysis revealed something even more shocking: The remains in Corbin’s grave + actually came from an adult male. DiGangi determined that it was a large man, who could’ve been + anywhere from five-foot-seven to six and a half feet tall. The remains of Margaret Corbin were not in + Margaret Corbin’s grave.

+
In 1926, the remains from Highland Park were reinterred at West Point, and sat at the foot of the Margaret Corbin monument until 2016. +
In 1926, the remains from Highland Park were + reinterred at West Point, and sat at the foot of the Margaret Corbin monument until 2016. Daughters of the American Revolution
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Once the archaeological excavation teams completed + their reports, the Army National Cemeteries contacted the Daughters of the American Revolution. They + wanted a meeting at DAR headquarters in Washington, DC.

+

Jennifer Minus, the head of the New York chapter of the DAR, was among + those present at the meeting. Minus, a graduate of West Point and a former member of the Corbin Forum, a + club for cadet women, knew her Corbin history better than most. She asked how it could’ve been a + man in the grave, if in 1926 the Army surgeon said that grapeshot injuries were present. In her report, + DiGangi explains that what the surgeon considered a grapeshot injury was, in fact, post-mortem damage to + the remains.

+

So where is Margaret Corbin? Since the attempted reburial of Corbin’s + remains, in 1926, her original gravesite in Highland Falls has been lost to time. Sometime in the 1970s, + the town dropped a sewage plant where many believe it was once located. Yet Minus remains optimistic + that Corbin’s remains will one day be found.

+
At left, another monument that pays homage to Margaret Corbin, near the site where she took over her husband's cannon; at right, a view of her monument at West Point. +
At left, another monument that pays homage to + Margaret Corbin, near the site where she took over her husband’s cannon; at right, a view of her + monument at West Point. Beyond + My Ken / CC BY-SA 4.0; Ahodges7 / CC BY-SA 3.0
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As upsetting as it was to learn that her remains were missing, the + Daughters also tried to see the discovery as an opportunity to spread Margaret’s story. It’s + as though they picked up right where the 1926 DAR members left off. Minus formed an unofficial Margaret + Corbin Task Force, drawing on the strengths of DAR members: One was a genealogist, and another was a + Navy veteran who had worked on locating the remains of American soldiers overseas.

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On April 30, 2019, + Minus combed the woods of Highland Falls, looking for the original gravesite. They tried to + match up the old photographs with newer ones, but this proved difficult, because most of the trees in + the photographs were saplings at the time. They looked for flat areas that would have been suitable for + burials: It was common at the time to bury people in elevated areas, to avoid rising water tables that + could push the caskets back up to the surface.

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The next day, the Daughters gathered again around Corbin’s monument, + dressed in large hats and sashes. The ground looked as though it had never been disturbed. A casual + viewer would’ve never known that Corbin wasn’t under their feet.

+
In 2018, the Margaret Corbin monument was rededicated with a wreath laying. + +
In 2018, the Margaret Corbin monument was + rededicated with a wreath laying. + Daughters of the American Revolution
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It was an important day for the Daughters, but especially for Minus, who + joined the DAR in part because of Corbin. Once, before she graduated from West Point, she told her + grandparents about a lunch honoring Margaret Corbin. Her grandmother told her that her heritage made her + eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, and a few years later, when she returned from + a post in Germany, her grandma prepared the necessary papers.

+

Minus is hopeful that they’ll find Corbin near the river, not far + from the grave that the Daughters dug up in 1926. “When they started digging, they found bones. + So, they didn’t make, like, 10 different holes over a field. They got it on their first attempt + and found bones. What I’m hoping is that they just had to do a 180, and she would’ve been + five feet over.”

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The man they found in Corbin’s grave has since come back to the West + Point cemetery, to be reinterred with the other unidentified remains found in the area. No one yet knows + who the man could be. Some theorize it’s Corbin’s second husband—but there’s no + proof that she remarried. Others believe it was a Native American. It’s possible that the unknown + man might be dug up a third time, should the proper clues demand his participation. Corbin’s + original gravesite did not turn up in 2018, but the search + continues.

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On Corbin Day in 2019, after the 21-gun salute, the Daughters hold another + luncheon. This time, the Margaret Corbin Task Force has something special on display: a machine that + looks like a souped-up lawn mower. Many Daughters file into the room and ask what it is. “Just + wait,” Minus answers. Then Lieutenant Colonel Mindy Kimball, an environmental science professor at + West Point, holds a demonstration. It’s a ground-penetrating radar machine, which shoots + electromagnetic waves into the ground and sends information back up to the antennae, to identify + underground disturbances that could reveal human remains.

+
The monument to Margaret Corbin is West Point’s only monument to a woman veteran. +
The monument to Margaret Corbin is West + Point’s only monument to a woman veteran. Ahodges7 + / CC BY-SA 3.0
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Whether or not Corbin is ever located, just sharing her story helps to + immortalize her. Minus is fascinated by the many identities that Corbin came to inhabit. + “She’s an army spouse, and then an army widow, and then she was a soldier, and then she was + a wounded soldier, and then she was a prisoner of war, and then she was a veteran,” she says. + Corbin was also the first woman to receive a military pension from the government, and is mentioned by + name in the Congressional Record. “I really think of her as that building block for women in the + military.”

+

Stella Bailey, the town historian of Highland Falls, has been researching + Margaret Corbin for decades. She’s pored over old maps, trying to pinpoint exactly where Corbin + might have been buried in 1800. She even gets emails from people who think they might be related to + Corbin.

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Sitting in her office, overlooking Main Street in Highland + Falls, Bailey sighs. “We know she was real. West Point’s records acknowledge her + existence,” she says. But she can list discrepancies in Corbin’s story. Some say her husband + was shot in the head; some say he was shot in the heart. Others say Corbin dressed as a man to fight in + the war. Sometimes she wonders whether she will ever find answers. Perhaps these conflicting stories are + just a part of Corbin’s mystique. “The more I research, the less I know,” Bailey says. +

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