Archaeologists have identified 13 unmarked, unrecorded graves at Vicksburg National Cemetery, capping an 18-month research project, but mystery still surrounds the identity of those buried in those graves

The graves — marked with yellow survey flags until permanent headstones bearing the word “Unknown” arrive — are in portions of the cemetery dating to the late 1940s and most likely are for veterans of World War II or the Korean War or spouses of veterans. Records of the burials are not on file with the National Park Service, the Veteran’s Administration or any local funeral home, Vicksburg Military Park Superintendent Michael Madell said.

“We should have had it in our records and recorded it, but we didn’t,” he said.

Identifying the presence of the graves is a relief, but the information is tinged with sadness because the names of those buried have been lost to history, he said.

“We are very disappointed that these individuals had to lie in virtual anonymity for many decades now,” he said.

During the research, no one contacted the park to say he or she might have a relative in an unmarked grave, so the chance of identifying any of the remains is very slim, Madell said.

“They are probably always going to remain anonymous,” he said.

The burial ground, located on a 1.9-acre tract parallel to North Washington Street, was used from the 1940s until 1961 to bury veterans of World War II and Korea. In 1961, the park, with 18,000 buried soldiers from wars spanning 150 years, stopped accepting burials, unless reservations had been made before.

The research that revealed the unrecorded graves began in August 2010 when cemetery employees were preparing to bury World War II veteran Louis Spencer, who had reserved his plot before the cemetery closed.

“Much to our surprise we found that there was already a casket interred,” Madell said.

When workers revealed the corner of the casket, they stopped digging, and upon closer investigation discovered that the adjacent burial plot, also believed to be vacant, contained another casket.

“National Park Service staff immediately began to investigate who might be buried in the two caskets. We also questioned if these were the only presumable unmarked and unrecorded graves in the cemetery,” Madell said.

The two unrecorded graves were just a fraction of what a team from the Southeast Archaeological Center discovered with ground-penetrating radar. Initially, archaeologists found 89 areas that they thought might contain caskets, said Dr. David W. Morgan of Southeast Archaeological Center. After probing the area with slender 6-foot-long tile poles and unearthing a few inches of dirt to check for the discoloration pattern commonly left by burials, they narrowed the number to 13 graves, he said.

“We never went below a foot deep,” Morgan said. “The one thing we did not want to do is disturb a burial.”

The rest of the objects were either rocks, bricks, pottery or geographic anomalies, he said. Many of the rocks and bricks came from the wall that now runs along North Washington Street, and others items were left behind from houses that were once on the property, Morgan said.

“It’s likely that these were residential structures at one time,” he said.

Bodies interred in the unmarked graves most likely were buried after the cemetery expanded in the late 1940s because they are in line with the current pattern of tombstones, he said. If the burials predated the cemetery’s expansion, the graves probably would not be in line with the current pattern, he said.

Vicksburg National Cemetery was established by Congress in 1866 and began moving Civil War casualties from wartime burial sites into the cemetery in 1887, park historian Terry Winschel said.

More than 18,000 veterans are buried in the cemetery, most of those having died in and around the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg. Of the 17,000 Union dead, about 13,000 of those are unidentified, he said.

Since the National Cemetery closed in 1961, 109 more people have been buried there, and about 50 reservations for plots remain.