deer family and members of their households were accused of mistreating their dlaslaves in different ways. it sounded like this wooden house were out of the primary building cluster which was a pattern that was not seen in the area. it is much common in the deep south or the caribbean. it happens to be out in the agriculture field that was 40 plus acres. it was an area that had not been investigated ar investigat investigated archically. we were coming to the ends of the multi fear of archeologically. >> we did the 40 plus acres agricultural field. what we did end up uncovering was a large dense kind of lynn

ye linear deposit of hardware and nails and buttons and coins and actu actually the deposits of artifacts out there were so dense and we found glass ware and ceramics and based on the date range of them, i was fairly certain at that time that we had identified the site of the slave quarters associated with it. we did not have any funding for archeo logical research. what we are looking at is what we call structure b or the six

of the structure laid out in a row. the way it manifests itself is a foundation of the stone chimney. it is i am lamsimilar of what yn the secondary house there. it is a c-shaped that formed the foundation for the chimney. you can see two smaller stone pee pe pierce which would have form the corner of the building. so actually some intermediate pier as well. >> so they probably were one story or a story and a half buildings, they measured about 20 by 34 feet in dimensions of external chimney in the south elevation. very simple and expediant

structure that was constructed. they're all about the same dimensions. their equal distance from one another. each one of these foundations are exactly 66 feet apart. they on the exact same orientation or axis as the structure on the farm literally within a couple of inches. it is an ordered landscape. these buildings were laid out in a precise fashion. it is not hazard at all. they actually do form quite literally the row of wooden houses that's mentioned in the traveler's account. sort of our starting point was actually what's called al shovel test survey. it is a hole about a hiwidth of the blade that's excavated over a site.

in our case, we excavated a hole about every 20 feet the entire sort of, you know, two-thirds of an acre that make up this area. you know in a shovel test pit, all of that soil is screened and what you are looking for are artifact concentrations and soil changes and concentrations or stones or brick. another thing that we did where we were fortunate enough to do some remote sensing. we were able to have access to a radar device which is able to see or identify archaeological features below, a depth that identifies foundations or similar type features. during the course of the service penetrating the radar survey, we identified two additional

features, where you see the cluster of blue flags over there is one of the features. that appears to be the southern most structure. in this particular thing that was fully exposed, and then we sort of started expanding out. once we knew we weren't dealing with a continuous stone foundation but rather a chimney feature, the question was, well, how did they construct these buildings? and you know, we ended up uncovering these two stone piers that as i said formed the corners of the building. that's the point at which, you know, you start to be able to to some degree understand and interpret how these buildings were constructed, and then it's really just a question of investing the time and energy to kind of chase it and to try to uncover the whole thing. all of the funding for this project came from a program that's called the cultural resource preservation program. we also were fortunate.

the secretary of the interior has created a new funding source that's called the youth intake program, and that's a competitive funding source that's aimed at getting young people interested and connected with their national parks and providing them with on-the-job training that might help them consider a career in the national parks service, so i was able to apply for and was awarded some of the yip funding which allowed me to hire some of the several student interns involved in the project. this is jordan riccio of amercan university, graduate student. at american university. and this is alex brueggeman, a senior of howard university. >> i'm of haitian descent which is really why i wanted to do this project. it's an extremely unique place. you don't really think of a french emigre, a family from san dominge coming here and bringing haitian slaves with them, so i was incredibly moved by the

story, and it turned out to be really great. >> well, i got involved with the project through american university. i had heard about the project and applied and met with joy and was able to -- to come here. i found it to be a very fantastic program, especially to learn more about the trade of archaeology and the methodologies involved. i learned a lot about many, many things, especially shovel test pits. >> this was a crash course in archaeology. you learn priceless information. you learn the trade, learn how it's done, but not only that, you learn how to really look at the world and history in a completely different light. >> personally i found a lot of brick and mortar. there was a lot of interesting artifacts found on-site. i was mainly the person digging

in the units. >> like jordan said, a lot of it was bricks and mortar, but we also found the coins and we found a horse bit which was over there in the midden. a lot of animal bones which kind of led us to realize what they were eating. we found a lot of glassware and a lot of -- one bead, one tiny bead, which is a already really tiny, tiny bead, but it's very beautiful. >> this is the basement of the circa 1830 gambrel mill. one of the historic structures here at the park. and this is where we do a lot of our on-site laboratory work. the acid-free boxes that you see there, the artifacts from this year's field season, all boxed up and washed and rebagged and ready to be cataloged and analyzed, and we've pulled out

just kind of a handful of artifacts that are somewhat representative of the kinds of objects that we've been uncovering out there at the site, everything from things like different kinds of coins, this is a u.s. large cent. these res actually spanish reals so those are silver spanish coins. a lot of different kinds of buttons. this is actually really finely made shell button, and probably the most common kind of button that we find are these one-piece flat buttons with a wire shank. these are very common in the 18th and early part of the 19th century. also more two-piece buttons. that one still has a bit of the silver gilt visible on it. other kinds of items. personal items. this is a clay marble so that was probably a toy, and -- and also a lot of architectural debris. obviously this is a complete handmade brick.

also nails and hand-wrought nails mostly. we find a lot of nails. other kinds of architectural hardware, mortar, brick fragments, architectural-type debris. glassware and ceramics, a nice olive wine bottle neck. this is the finished part and the lip. a wide variety of different kinds of ceramics. everything from the more utilitarian probably locally produced redwares or stonewares to more refined english-made porcelains and hand painted pearlwares produced in england and elsewhere. and then also tobacco pipe fragments in large quantities and then food remains and bones. this is a tooth probably from a

cow. a lot of food remains, oyster shell and even freshwater mussel shells, those kinds of things. this is all the provenance information. obviously it's critical for us to be able to know where all these objects came from, their context. so everything is kept separate by provenance, either by excavation unit, by strata, all those kinds of details. and that's part of the sort of the internal recordkeeping. and that's part of our analysis and understanding of the data. that's a big part of archaeology. people always think of archaeology as strictly focusing on the field work and the act of going out and digging and that's only a very small piece of it. the really important work happens in the analysis of the data and the interpretation. there's a lot of information, obviously everything from information about construction details or the architecture of the site. a lot of these objects are highly dateable. obviously the coins, being the

most obvious ones, but things like buttons, even glasswares and ceramics, all of these things were popular at specific moments in history. technological changes that happened over time help provide occupational dates for a site, so that's very important information. access to consumer goods. i mean, we're certainly interested in the kinds of things that these people had and use for their daily life. one question might be these english tablewares. where do those come from? were these hand-me-downs that the family gave them for their own use? did these people have ways to make a little bit of money on their own and be able to actually acquire and purchase these kinds of consumer goods on their own? these are all the kinds of questions and things that we're interested in and all of that kind of helps us get more at what the day-to-day lives of these people were like.

all of these artifacts would be cataloged which is kind of a system of recording attributes, dates, manufacture, material type, all of that individual information about all of these individual artifacts. all of that information is data entered into a database and then we'll start analyzing that data. we'll start looking at patterns within that data trying to say something about what these artifacts mean within the larger context of the site history. and that's all the information that we'll be working on over the course of the wintertime. there are a lot of established and known reference material out there that historical archaeologists in general use for dating objects, and that goes not just for ceramics but for glasswares and other kinds of objects. just like nowadays. technology changes over time and oftentimes technology changed

down to a certain date, like a modern-day example would be not too long ago sony stopped making the walkman. and, you know, they first started making walkmans like in 1979, and, you know, first you had the -- the big clunky walkman and then they got smaller over time and then you had the ones that you could put a cd in and so on and so forth. that's technology that changed over time, and you can -- you can identify and research how that technology changed over time. they stopped making the walkman in the u.s. in 2010 so they have sort of a 1979 to 2010 period of use. that doesn't mean that nobody out there is using their walkman anymore but you'll sort of have a period of time in which the popularity of the walkman perhaps peaked. it's really a similar thing with other kinds of objects. all of the artifacts from the national capital region of the national parks service go to a central curatorial facility

which is called the museum resource center. that's just down the road in landover, maryland. actually two days a week we're doing some of our cataloguing and lab work in that facility which is a little bit closer to washington which allows some of the students to be involved in that part of the process on a volunteer basis. so that was -- that's where all the artifacts will go into permanent curatorial storage. we would like to eventually be able to develop permanent exhibits that will focus on the this aspect of the park's history. and obviously we would probably select some of these artifacts to be incorporated into those exhibit displays as well. and we can access them. usually sometimes for black history month we'll do a little temporary exhibit at the visitors center that will focus on some aspect of african-american history here at the park. so this year we'll probably develop a temporary exhibit that

will probably feature some of these artifacts that we'll have at the visitors center for a period of time. >> how did you get involved in this work? >> i wanted to be an archaeologist for as long as i can remember since i was a little kid. my family has a second home out in new mexico and i spent a lot of time over the summer at different points in my life out there. we used to always go out and pick up artifacts. there's archeological sites everywhere out there. that's what sort of got me interested. and i was fortunate that my parents were supportive of my archaeology habit, and i went to archaeology camp as a kid and it's just something that always stayed with me. a lot of people will say when they find out i'm an archaeologist, oh, i wanted to be an archaeologist when i was a kid. and i guess i never outgrew that. you know, when i got to college, i chose to major in anthropology and pursue a career in archaeology. and i've been fortunate that

i've been able to do that. here in the park service, even though my training is in archaeology, i'm the cultural resource manager for the park so archaeology is a small part of what i do. i'm also responsible for all the historic preservation work that goes on in the park as well. so all the historic buildings and cultural landscapes are part of what i focus on as well. >> what are some of the myths about archaeology that -- that are out there? >> people always ask me if i've been to egypt. the question -- probably the question that i get the most -- sometimes people mix up archaeology and paleontology and they will ask me if i dig up dinosaurs and obviously that's a completely different field of study, but i -- people always ask what's the most interesting thing that you've ever found, and it's really difficult to really distill it down to one object because at the end of the day it's not really about the objects themselves. it's about the story and the interpretation of those objects,

so for me it doesn't just come down to what's the most interesting thing that you found. i mean, i've had the opportunity to work on a number of very interesting projects, and certainly the story of the laramie slave village site is the most important and interesting project that i've had opportunity to be involved with in my career. >> if a young person out there thinks they want to be an archaeologist, what advice would you give them? >> i would advise them to stick with it, hang in there. you can get a job doing this. it's not the easiest thing. i would advise them to -- to make sure that they go to a good college. they are going to want to pursue an advanced degree, probably not just stop with an undergraduate degree and -- and, you know, just hang in there and -- and give it a shot. you know, the national parks service is a great agency. there's a lot of opportunities in the national park service to

do this kind of work and other historic preservation work, so i certainly always encourage folks to consider the national park service. >> somebody is out there working, and they find one of these fragments or a coin. typically describe the scene. is it sifting, or is it digging at the actual location? how do they find these things? >> a little bit of both. all of the dirt that comes out of the ground goes through a screen, at least a quarter-inch hardware cloth screen. we screen everything we dig up. sometimes as you're sort of excavating, you know, using a trowel or whatever, you'll uncover objects sort of in situ. other times you'll simply find them in the screen, but, you know, it's something that's very exciting for people. we work with a lot of volunteers obviously over the summer we'll have history camps or student groups come out. and sometimes we'll have them help us out and maybe help with some of the screening. you know, there's really that sort of excitement and moment of

discovery, and a lot of the interns, i think that's, you know, that thrill of discovery is part of what keeps you going during the course of yet another 110-degree day out there, and, you know, a lot of people tell me that the part of what connects them with archaeology is knowing that they are the -- they are the first person to touch this object in, you know, the past 200 years or whatever the case may be, and, that you know, i think it's really part of that tangible connection to the past that people get excited about. we're hoping -- at this point we don't have funding for any additional field work which is unfortunate because obviously i feel like -- you know, we've really just sort of scratched the surface out here, and there's a lot more information potential with this site. it's very unique, particularly for this area, the mid-atlantic region. you don't typically see slavery being practiced on the scale

that it was being practiced here at leramie taj. i think i mentioned that 90 slaves is roughly 10 times the number of enslaved individuals you would have expected to be living here. so that's an extremely unusual circumstance for this area. you know, like i said, they are about 20 x 34 feet. that's just under 700 square feet of living space. if, in fact, there were only six structures total, one can assume there were somewhere between maybe as many as 12 or 15 people living in each these dwelling houses which probably sounds like a lot, so i -- i would -- i would guess or assume that these may have been extended family units, for example, living together. multiple generations of families. like i say, these are pretty utilitarian, simple, expediently constructed buildings, and they

probably were constructed about the same time as the secondary house, and it was probably the family's first order of business to get these buildings constructed and get these people housed so that they can then start working the land and being productive and ultimately generating income for the vincent deere family. there are not a lot of instances out there where you have a complete collection of multiple dwelling houses preserved in an archaeological context so there's a great deal of research potential here in terms of understanding more about the context and the study of slavery in general. there are not that many national park service units that have this kind of resource preserved so we're just really fortunate that as a result of this land being set aside and preserved, as a result of the battle of monocacy, we also have these other stories and other resources that are preserved as well.

and even though the laramie taj plantation was long gone by 1864 when the battle of monocacy was fought, the story of the family and the enslaved people and the vincent deere family is still a great platform from which to talk about slavery as a causative aspect of the civil war. at the park level we're going to be working on developing some new interpretive programs and other interpretive products that will talk about the history of this site and this project and sort of start to look at african-american experiences here at the monocacy battlefield in general. we'll also be working on the development of some web-based resources, again, that will sort of help tell the story and help present this information to the public. and in the longer term what we would like to have are actually separate permanent exhibits that will focus on kind of the broader historic context of the battle of monocacy and the civil war. obviously slavery and plantation

life would be a big part of that discussion. so down the road, again, funding dependant, that's something we would like to have so should we be fortunate enough to get additional funding to do more field work, that's certainly the goal, and if not, we'll do the best we can with the resources that we have, and obviously, you know, almost 400 units of the national park service out there, everybody has research needs and compliance needs and so there's never enough money to go around so we were -- just like in any sort of federal funding process, we had to wait our turn. and i think alex had mentioned to me, you know, living in washington, d.c., you think of the national park service and you sort of think monuments or maybe you think, you know, mountains or geysers or something. and i think one of the things that was helpful with this project was it kind of helped some of these students get a sense of the diversity of resources that the national park

service preserves. and i think maybe get them just a little bit interested, maybe in a career in the national park service or a career in archaeology. or if not, you know, hopefully these guys go on to, you know, do something else for a career or to work for a different agency, hopefully they will always look back on that experience and they will sort of think about the national parks in a different way and maybe be more engaged in and interested in kind of that stewardship aspect of what the national parks do. >> this american artifacts program was recorded in november of 2010. to learn more about the best farm slave village, logon to nps.gov/mono. you'll find a dropdown menu for history and culture. follow link to best farm slave village.

each week american art fak facts takes viewers so sites around the country. on april 9th, 1965, robert e lee met you lis sis s. grant and surrendered his ar mie. while an fed rat armies were still active in the field, it effectively ended the civil war. next we tour the courthouse national historic park to learn about the events surrounding that day. welcome to a mat cox courthouse national historical park. i'm patrick schroeder, the park historian and now we're standing in front of the cover hill tavern. this is the oldest building in the village built in 1819. in fact, this area was called clover hill before it became appomattox courthouse in 1845. this county was one of the later counties formed, and they took part of the four surrounding

counties and formed appomattox county in 1845. this county had about 9,000 people in it. more than half of them were enslaved, working on the tobacco farms. as of 1860, about 120 people lived here in appomattox courthouse. folks would stay at the clover hill tavern as they traveled along the richmond-lynchburg stage road. the courthouse was built in 1846, maybe finished in 1847. there was a jail that burned during the war and a new jail was built across the road. interestingly enough, when people come to appomattox courthouse, they learned in their schoolbooks that the surrender took place at appomattox courthouse. well, it did, in the town of appomattox courthouse but the actual surrender meeting took place at the home of wilmer mclean. if you're talking about the building, courthouse would

simply be one word. this is where the most significant events with the military took place in the spring of 1865, april 1865, with lee's surrender. now we're going to walk down the richmond-lynchburg stage road and discuss the battles of appomattox station on april 8th and the battle of appomattox courthouse on the morning of april 9th that effectively ended lee's retreat. we are standing on the historic richmond-lynchburg stage road, which was a critical part of general lee's retreat on april 8 and april 9, 1865. many people wonder why general lee was even heading toward appomattox court house after leaving richmond and petersburg on april 2nd, 1865. well, the idea was he was going to concentrate his army at amelia courthouse and head south

down the richmond danville railroad and link forces with general johnston in north carolina. general grant was a bit different than former generals of the union army, and he blocked general lee's line of retreat, thus general lee had to continue further west, searching for rations and hoping to get around grant's army. the next place general lee could gather supplies was about three miles from us here at appomattox station. supplies had been brought over from lynchburg to feed general lee's army. it's everything the army really needed. hundreds of thousands of rations, new uniforms, equipment, and that's where they're heading for on april 8 after leaving cumberland church on the night of april 7. general lee's advance is led by confederate reserve artillery under general reuben lindsey walker. they go to camp about a mile from appomattox station about two miles from here on the afternoon of april 8th.

and general custer's cavalry advances on that station and captures the supplies, then encounters general reuben lindsey walkers's general artillery and fight for about four hours the ball-of-p at mattox station. a very unique battle in the civil war because it's mounted cavalry attacking unsupported artillery. no infantry involved other than cannoneers that picked up weapons. the battle lasted about four hours from afternoon until after dark, and in the end general custer overruns the remaining guns of walker, captures about 25 cannon, 1,000 prisoners and 200 wagons. the advance of custer's men continue right down over that ridge into the village here where they are repulsed at the eastern edge of the village, and during the night the federal

cavalry form on the ridge west of town. during the night, general lee has a council of war with general john gordon, james longstreet and fritz lee, asking, should they surrender or should they try to break out? and it's determined they will try to break out on the morning of april 9th. general gordon brings his troops through the village on the morning of april 9th. he files off to the right and left into these fields. he's going to attack that ridge. there is a federal cavalry brigade under colonel charles smith, about 1,200 men holding that ridge up there. general gordon has about 5,000 men. he's supported by fritz lee on the right with about 4,000 cavalry. and artillery under armstead long. the attack begins a little after 7:30 that morning, and they successfully drive the federals off that ridge doing a left wheel. but hard-marching infantry from army of the james, the 24th corps and division of troops from the united states colored

troops from the 25th corps had covered over 30 miles on april 8. and they come up and closed the road back down and begin to push gordon's men back into the appomattox river valley. federal troops are also coming up from the south, the federal fifth core from the army of the potomac, and then further off to the south and east is general custer and general devlin's cavalry swinging around the confederate left flank. behind general lee, about four miles from here is general meade with the army of the potomac, the 7th and the 6th corps and general lee's army is effectively surrounded. white flags are sent to stop the fighting, and in the course of the fighting, lee's army had dwindled from 60,000 men to 30,000 men here at appomattox court house. he had lost half his army. he determined it was time to meet with general grant and surrender his forces.

they did that over here in the mclean house on the afternoon of april 9, 1865. we're now inside the parlor of the home of wilmer mclean, appomattox county resident, who moved here in the fall of 1862. general lee and general grant corresponded for over three days, and finally after being effectively surrounded here, general lee wished to have a meeting with general grant to surrender his army. lee sent lieutenant colonel charles marshall of his staff into the village to find a suitable place to meet, and he encountered wilmer mclean and mclean offered his own home. lee arrived here about 1:00, sat here at this marble-topped table. general grant, after riding over 20 miles, arrived at about 1:30. when he came in, he sat at the oval wooden table here. the two had met each other in the mexican war, and that was their first discussion. they talked about the mexican

war for quite a while, and the conversation got quite pleasant, and general lee reminded general grant the nature of this meeting and asked general grant to put his terms in writing. grant sat down and set his terms in writing for general lee. principally the confederate officers were going to be paroled and allowed to go home. he was going to allow the officers to keep their sidearms and personal baggage. and general lee later requests, asks if his men can keep their horses. grant initially said no, that that is not in the terms, but thinks about it for a minute and says that he understands that most of these men are small farmers and they could use these horses, and he will not rewrite it into the terms but will allow the confederate soldiers to keep their horses if they owned one. general lee said this would have a very happy effect upon his army. the terms are read over by general lee and given back to general grant.

general grant calls forward theodore bower of the staff to write out these terms in ink. bowers is nervous. he botches the job and turns it over to eli parker. eli parker is a seneca indian. they say he had the best penmanship in the army and general grant's staff and he actually writes out the formal terms for general grant. general lee's staff officer is lieutenant colonel charles marshall. he writes the acceptance letter. they exchange those letters. that's how the surrender is effected, the exchange of the letters. they both do not sign one document. over the course of the meeting, general grant introduces officers of his staff to general lee. some of them general lee knows very well, such as seth williams who was lee's adjutant when lee was a commandant at united states military academy at west point.