Chico State study may have found female combatants By ROGER H. AYLWORTH - Staff Writer A bone study conducted at Chico State University for the National Park Service suggests a woman or women may been among those killed at the second major battle of the Civil War. A presentation made by Patrick Willey, an anthropology professor, and two graduate students, Dan Tyree and Nicole Cavales, said bones found at the Wilson's Creek Civil War Battlefield in southwestern Missouri appear to be female. The battle at Wilson's Creek, which took place Aug. 10, 1861, was relatively small compared to epic struggles, like the battle of Gettysburg two years later, but 235 Union and 265 Confederate troops were killed in the fighting, Willey told a small audience gathered Thursday in Ayers Hall on campus to hear the presentation. The professor explained the Confederates, who won the battle, buried their own dead, but dumped the Union bodies "into any declivity that was handy." The Union bodies were tossed into wells and other places, including a site that became known as "the sinkhole." Theoretically, all of the Union bodies were exhumed from where they were dumped and reburied in a national cemetery in Springfield, Mo. However, Willey said an archeological dig conducted under the direction of the National Park Service, which manages the battlefield, found additional remains in the "sinkhole." Tyree said a box containing 10 plastic bags full of human bones, and some small artifacts, was delivered to Chico State last July. The artifacts were shipped elsewhere, but the bones were studied on campus. Tyree explained the bones, which did not include any skulls or long bones, such as those from the leg, were carefully inspected to determine the age, stature and nature of diseases or injuries suffered by the individuals, and to determine the sex. Without the skulls, long bones or pelvis bones, stature and sex of the individuals had to be estimated based on the size of certain bones of the hands and the feet. Tyree said, while the evidence wasn't conclusive, there were indications that two of the bones they inspected could have come from women. Cavales said there is an abundance of historical evidence that some women did fight and die as Civil War combatants. Women were officially prohibited from being in the armies at that time, but there are records of women who disguised themselves as men to fight. One woman, who lived and fought under the name "Alfred Luther," took part in the battle of Wilson's Creek, but she survived this fight and was not discovered to be a woman until she was killed in a later battle. Cavales said because of the bones they were using for sex identification, their evidence is equivocal and the bones could have come from a petite male. However, they could also be evidence of a woman who fought and died in this early stage of the Civil War. Following the study, the bones were returned to the Park Service and were buried in the Springfield National Cemetery. Desoto Joe/The Record Man