♪♪ -January 25, 1865, near Simpsonville, Kentucky.

A group of U.S. Army Cavalrymen begins the next leg of an 85-mile-long cattle drive.

When out of the blue... [ Gunfire, men yelling ] ...22 soldiers are gunned down by a band of armed civilians.

The identities of the victims were largely forgotten, their final burial place lost to history.

Now, 160 years later, a trio of amateur investigators has teamed up to rediscover the personal stories of these forgotten Civil War soldiers... ...and to locate the site of their unmarked mass grave.

The investigation into this dark time in Kentucky history will reveal tales of extraordinary valor and shocking violence.

They were ambushed and shot in the back.

-You were really caught in a cauldron of uncertainty and violence.

-It will also shed light on uncomfortable truths about the nation's -- and Abraham Lincoln's -- relationship to slavery.

-A lot of Kentuckians feel that Lincoln betrayed them.

-But behind the search for the details of these soldiers' lives and the circumstances surrounding their deaths is a story of patriotism and determination.

-They didn't know whether this would be the last time that they would ever see their family member again.

But they also understood, they had a mission.

-A story of long-held family secrets revealed... -When I learned that, I mean, my jaw dropped.

Just the connection.

This is now personal.

-...and a chance to see if today's technology can help write a new ending to this forgotten moment in American history.

♪♪ ♪♪ This program was made possible by the: And by contributions to your PBS station from: ♪♪ -Nearly four years into the Civil War, the nation has seen a stunning amount of bloodshed, and the casualties aren't limited to grand battlefields like Shiloh or Gettysburg.

Even beyond the front lines, dreams are cut short and the carnage is overwhelming.

The slaughter of more than 20 African American soldiers along a country road in an officially pro-Union state is a poignant example of how deeply the war has consumed the nation.

-Kentucky was pretty much divided from the moment the conflict was started.

Kentuckians are fighting with one another about which side they should align with.

-In the days after what is known as the Simpsonville Massacre, Louisville, Kentucky's "Courier-Journal" described the grim event...

But soon after it happened, the Simpsonville Massacre was all but lost to history, leaving a string of unanswered questions -- What exactly happened on that cold January morning of 1865?

Who were these soldiers?

Why were they targeted?

And where is their final resting place?

For years, David Brown, Jerry Miller, and Juanita White have each dedicated themselves to answering these questions.

David Brown always knew that his great-great-grandfather, Samuel Truehart, fought in the Civil War.

But then a discovery among family keepsakes would reveal there was far more to Samuel's story than he realized.

-In the early part of the 1990s, we actually went into a chest that my grandmother owned.

And in there, we found a trove of photographs of her family, including many photographs of Sam Truehart.

We found documents that identified what unit he served in, which regiment he served in, and also the company he served in.

-Like the other soldiers at Simpsonville, Samuel Truehart was a member of Company E of the 5th United States Colored Cavalry.

He was also formerly enslaved -- one of the more than 179,000 Black men who joined the U.S. military to fight the Confederate forces and for the freedom of enslaved Americans.

-I've often considered what he was facing in 1864 as a former slave -- to enlist in the military, to realize that he didn't know if he would come out alive.

-Juanita White is a historian and scriptwriter from Louisville, Kentucky.

While researching her own family history, she learned about two other soldiers who served alongside Samuel Truehart in the 5th USCC -- George White, no relation to Juanita, and Newton Bush.

Their stories provide a rare look into not only the lives of the war's Black soldiers, but also the chaotic moments of the massacre.

Like Truehart, before the two men were soldiers, they had been enslaved.

And after the conflict, their contribution to the war effort was largely forgotten or ignored.

-I went both to segregated and integrated schools.

I don't ever recall anything about Civil War and African American soldiers, uh, especially from Kentucky.

That all came once I retired and started volunteering as a docent in a historic home.

We were talking about people who were considered as property, and here they were out trying to save a country that didn't appreciate them.

-Juanita wrote a one-man play that brings the harrowing experience of the Simpsonville Massacre to life.

-Comrades lost in battle.

Buried in unmarked graves.

The struggles we had... -And she continues to search for details about the lives of these men so that future generations will understand the wartime contributions made by Black soldiers.

Jerry Miller is a local historian, and, like Juanita White, he only learned about the Simpsonville Massacre while researching his own family history.

-All this happened right around where I live, and I didn't know anything.

I didn't know about it until I was almost 60 years old.

Even though I called myself a history buff, I didn't know it.

-For nearly 20 years, he has been searching for the final resting place of the massacred soldiers from the 5th USCC.

-After the Civil War, there was a burial commission that the Union Army set up and they would go to battlefields.

Well, they didn't take the time to find these men.

Was it 'cause these guys were Black?

I don't know.

It has always rankled me that the story of the 5th U.S.

Colored Cavalry was not well known.

Even in Kentucky, it's not well known.

-Jerry has continued to uncover new details about the unit.

Today, a new set of clues and two potential burial sites are bringing him back to Simpsonville once again.

A recently discovered family secret has only intensified his desire to find this gravesite and bring these soldiers the recognition they deserve.

-My Miller branch of my family had small farms in Kentucky, and I always wondered, "Well, did they enslave people?"

So, I learned, yes, they did.

I learned the two military-age men that were enslaved by my ancestors enlisted in the 5th U.S.

Colored Cavalry.

I mean, it's like -- When I learned that, I mean, my jaw dropped.

And that was just about four months ago I learned that.

And just the connection.

Well, this is getting personal.

This is now personal.

-Together with a team of archaeologists and engineers from the University of Kentucky, Jerry hopes to bring some closure to the story of the 5th USCC, once and for all.

By 1864, the violence and scope of the Civil War has left scars on nearly every American -- whether soldier, civilian, or enslaved.

For President Abraham Lincoln, Kentucky is vital to winning the war.

It's an election year and he needs a victory.

Both sides of the war are losing men at an alarming rate.

Of all the white men -- North and South -- who were of military age when the war began, nearly 1 out of 10 would die as a result of the war.

Manpower is at a premium.

In some Northern states, the Army and Navy have started to enlist African American men, boosting troop numbers... but the change is not without controversy, especially in crucial slave-holding Kentucky.

-Lincoln recognizes he's not gonna win this war without Kentucky.

He needs the men of Kentucky.

He needs its resources.

He needs it geographically.

-Lincoln had a fraught relationship with Kentucky.

He was born in the state, but lost it in the 1860 election.

Like the other border states, Kentucky did not secede from the Union, but it did not outlaw slavery either.

The hope was to find a middle ground that would enable a state like Kentucky to keep the 200,000 people enslaved within its borders.

-As a matter of fact, the slavery here would be just like enslavement anywhere, I mean, you're not free.

-Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved population of the rebelling states and encouraged enslaved Southerners to join the U.S. Military, but it did not emancipate the enslaved people of the Union's border states that were not in rebellion, like Kentucky.

But the state's slaveowners were concerned.

They sensed that their enslaved people could be freed next.

-The Emancipation Proclamation exempted Kentucky, but everybody in Kentucky saw the writing on the wall.

In the aftermath of the proclamation, the willingness to embrace violence, to control the enslaved only intensifies.

Some of them, they begin to sell their enslaved people into the slave trade, send them down to Mississippi.

They calculate, "Well, at least we'll save our investment that way."

-The Emancipation Proclamation allowed Lincoln to hold onto Kentucky and other border states while putting a dent in the South's ability to wage war.

But it wasn't enough to end the war.

Then, in 1864, Kentucky finally joined Northern states in allowing African American men -- even if they were enslaved -- a chance to fight.

They would be given a uniform and a rifle and be recognized as free men, if they could get themselves to a recruitment camp and enlist.

The impact is both immediate and profound.

For the U.S. Army, it means fresh recruits.

For the enslavers, this bargain is a threat to a way of life they'd benefited from for generations.

Once emancipated, these men could no longer be sold or leased out as they were before.

-A lot of Kentuckians feel that Lincoln betrayed them in 1864 when they started enlisting African American men.

-As one U.S. general had previously warned, a Kentucky enlisting Black soldiers "will never see another day of peace."

Civil War historian Joni House was raised in central Kentucky.

Her family's connection to this landscape goes back to the early 19th century.

-Kentucky devolved into what I would call a mini-Civil War in and of itself.

The violence just escalated.

[ Gunshot ] -Violence between neighbors, within families.

Violence that would ultimately ensnare the 22 U.S. cavalrymen whose unmarked grave has inspired this modern-day search.

David Brown has come to Camp Nelson National Monument in Nicholasville, Kentucky, to walk in the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather, Samuel Truehart, and to learn more about what really happened on that fateful January day in Simpsonville.

-Samuel Truehart was a private in the 5th United States Cavalry and was mustered into that unit here at Camp Nelson in September of 1864.

-He wants to understand what Truehart and other Black Kentuckians experienced when they joined the U.S. Army and achieved their freedom.

-We always knew that our ancestor had served in the Civil War but not much else about his service.

-The camp sits within Union territory, but was built with slave labor, underscoring the complex relationship between Kentucky, the U.S. Army, and the African Americans who would come here to enlist.

For David Brown, discovering Truehart's enlistment records forced him to reconsider his family's history.

-Family lore was that Sam was not a slave, that he was a freeman.

-But the records David found told a different story.

-We found, through my research, that he was a slave.

The story was, was that his father bought his mother out of slavery.

So, I don't know when that happened, so I don't know why he wasn't freed at that point.

I'm assuming his father couldn't afford to buy both of them out.

-The records list where Samuel lived and who his enslaver was.

His path to the battlefield was far more difficult than his descendants ever realized.

-As far as we know, he grew up and was enslaved in Shelby County, which is not around the corner, but not too far from Camp Nelson.

I'm assuming that he, you know, at some point, had learned about the opportunity to enlist and decided it was his chance to pursue his freedom.

-Truehart, along with Newton Bush and George White, were among thousands of men escaping enslavement and heading for Camp Nelson and other recruitment camps in Kentucky.

They'd most likely learned about the opportunity through word of mouth.

And until they reached camp, they were considered fugitives and in extreme danger.

Although these men did not leave diaries, the autobiography of a fellow soldier, Elijah Marrs, describes what they were facing.

♪♪ "Day was now breaking.

We were within the lines of the Union Army, and by eight o'clock, we were at the recruiting office.

By 12 o'clock, the owner of every man of us was in the city, hunting his slaves."

-To get to Camp Nelson, it was treacherous.

As Marrs talked about it in his book, they would have to hide out and stay in barns and areas that were secretive, because if they got caught, they could have been beaten, they could have been sold, or returned to their own owners.

But they managed to make it.

-I had before thought about it more the place he came to enlist in the Army.

But realizing now, after I've learned more about Camp Nelson and about Kentucky during that era, that this was a place they came to seek freedom.

-A second account, written by Peter Bruner, who had also been enslaved, suggests another motivation for the freedom seekers.

"We arrived at Camp Nelson and had come 41 miles in that day.

The officers asked me what I wanted there, and I told them that I came there to fight the rebels and that I wanted a gun."

-They weren't citizens, but they were willing to fight for this country.

♪♪ -Steve Phan is Chief of Interpretation at the Camp Nelson National Monument.

Like David, he has been working to piece together the world new recruits like Sam Truehart would have entered.

-It was a very proud moment when they walked into Camp Nelson.

They realized that this could change their lives and that of their families, as well, and talked about being issued their uniforms for the first time and putting that on.

-By the summer of 1864, Camp Nelson had become Kentucky's largest recruitment center and the third largest in the nation for United States Colored Troops.

♪♪ It sprawled across 4,000 acres, sheltered some 14,000 horses and mules, and contained warehouses full of rations and war supplies destined for U. S. armies fighting the Confederacy.

-There were dozens of buildings, a swirl of activity, men coming in daily to join the army.

The very trail we're walking on is a part of the original road trace -- military roads built by enslaved people.

-This is my third time at Camp Nelson, but every time I come, I learn more.

I think it's an important part of my family's history and American history.

♪♪ -At the time of Truehart, Bush, and White's enlistment, the Army is building up its cavalry.

Horsemen are needed both to fight and to guard supplies headed to the front lines.

-Kentucky is known as horse country, and so there were a lot of recruits that had experience working with horses, and they were assigned to the 5th and 6th Colored Cav.

-The new soldiers are issued Enfield rifles.

The weapon is common on both sides of the fight, but it's difficult to fire and even more difficult to reload once on horseback.

♪♪ The war's front lines are now in Virginia and Georgia.

And with hundreds of thousands engaged at the front, the U. S. Army is struggling to keep peace in the volatile border states, like Kentucky.

Camp Nelson may feel like a safe haven, but outside its confines, deadly firefights continue to flare up.

The new soldiers are preparing for this violence.

[ Gunfire ] ♪♪ When they aren't training, the soldiers crowd into makeshift classrooms, determined to learn to read and write.

-It was called the Camp Nelson School for Colored Soldiers.

And it was taught by some of the Black soldiers themselves and missionaries who had shown up at Camp Nelson.

In the military system, it's pretty important to know how to read and write in order to follow orders.

-They also write letters home.

And some, like George White, send the money they're earning to their still-enslaved families.

Camp Nelson presents an entirely new way of life for the recruits.

But even here, they are unable to escape racism.

White officers would remark that their Black soldiers were subjected to persistent harassment by other Union soldiers.

Many doubt they will even fight, but they do.

In the fall of 1864, the soldiers of the 5th USCC join their white counterparts in battle in Virginia.

Targeted by Confederate soldiers during and after the fight, the unit suffers heavy casualties.

But along the way, they earn the respect of their commanding officer, Colonel James Brisbin.

He states, "I have seen white troops fight in 27 battles, and I never saw any fight better."

Much of the story of the 5th USCC remains hidden in archives or buried underground.

While the search for the burial site continues in Simpsonville, 65 miles away at Camp Nelson, archaeologist Stephen McBride has recovered numerous artifacts.

They give insight into not only the soldiers' military training, but their personal lives as well.

These are details that David Brown has been eager to learn about since discovering his family's artifacts in his grandmother's chest.

-One of those things that we found there was this particular tintype of Samuel Truehart.

What I learned is that it was quite a rare picture in that not only were there rare to have pictures of United States Colored Troops from the Civil War but particularly rare to have a picture of a cavalryman.

-This is neat 'cause it has got his artifacts, he's got his gloves, gauntlets.

You can see the buttons.

He's got a short jacket, which was common with the cavalry.

-We always knew that he had served, but finding the -- this tintype was quite, you know, I think, quite a discovery for us.

-The trunk also contained a photo of his great-great-grandmother, Mary, who, like Sam, had escaped slavery.

Her enslavers were a wealthy family who ran a boarding house.

Family lore says she faced abuse.

Her hand was scalded with a hot iron, and she was, you know, scarred the rest of her life.

So, I think, um, that was one of the -- may have contributed to her decision to run away that time.

She ran away to Camp Nelson... -Mm-hmm.

-...around the time that they got married.

I think she was 18.

-Amy Murrell Taylor has written extensively about the men and women who escaped to military bases like Camp Nelson.

-Mary Truehart is taking a pretty enormous risk even coming here.

She has no way of knowing whether she's going to be allowed to stay.

-The men could enlist and free themselves, but if their family members get here, what is their status?

It was not known.

And it was susceptible to change almost immediately, on a daily basis.

-Testimony from Patsey Leach, the wife of one USCC soldier, describes the predicament women faced when their husbands enlisted.

To escape with him would've been risky, potentially deadly.

But she learned that staying behind could also lead to violence.

After her husband was killed in battle, she states, "My master whipped me severely, saying my husband had gone into the army to fight against white folks, and he would take it out of my back.

He would kill me by piecemeal."

-We had a lot more information about our family, much more than, you know, most African Americans can have about -- have about their -- their ancestors, particularly during and before the Civil War.

-Mm-hmm.

-But there's also a lot that we don't know.

What was the likelihood that they would've been able -- how often would they able to see each other?

-It's possible she might've lived with Samuel for a little while, but the Army probably would've broken that up.

While the recruits prepare for war, their families live in the shadows.

Written accounts are rare, but archeological discoveries at Camp Nelson suggest they survived by doing laundry and cooking for the soldiers.

They also brought their own traditions with them.

One recovered item -- a silver dime with a hole cut in it -- would have been used as an amulet to ward off bad spirits.

Each small item demonstrates how these largely anonymous Americans made it through the conflict.

But other artifacts at Camp Nelson hint at the stories of those not as fortunate.

-We also have two other artifacts -- melted, hard rubber comb and a melted glass.

And for glass to melt, the temperature has to be incredibly high.

-Why were these common household items consumed in fire?

The evidence coming from Camp Nelson suggests that it wasn't accidental.

As Mary Truehart and the other refugees continue to crowd into Camp Nelson, tensions escalate.

♪♪ As soon as refugee families began arriving, they faced an ongoing threat of expulsion.

The most notorious incident takes place on the frigid morning of November 23, 1864.

Some 400 women and children are removed from their shelters by the order of Speed Smith Fry, the camp's commanding general.

They are forced onto wagons and taken outside the camp to locations still plagued by violence.

♪♪ Inside the camp, their shelters and remaining possessions are burned.

♪♪ Many officials at Camp Nelson are appalled by the expulsions.

Testimonials are taken of what happened.

As one soldier would testify, "He told my wife and family that if they did not get up into the wagon, he would shoot the last one of them.

My wife carried her sick child in her arms.

He died directly after getting down from the wagon.

I knew he was killed by exposure to the inclement weather.

I dug a grave myself and buried my own child."

-There were many soldiers who later testified that they joined with the promise that they could take care of their families.

-Quartermaster Captain Theron Hall, an abolitionist from Massachusetts, takes the story to the press.

Using the pseudonym Humanitas, he sends a letter and the testimonials to national newspapers, in hopes of ending the expulsions.

It works.

The forced removal leaves the nation outraged, and the military quickly allows the Black soldiers' families to return.

But for the 102 refugees who died from exposure and illness, the effort was too late.

For David Brown, who has spent decades researching his ancestors' Civil War experience, the event exposes the difficulty of tracking down those loved ones who lived outside of official records.

-Was she one of those who was expelled?

And did she return?

I kind of assume she did because of what we know, but those are all still mysteries that I really don't have any clear answers to yet, but I can only speculate.

♪♪ -In the aftermath of the final November expulsion of refugees, the Army establishes the Home for Colored Refugees at Camp Nelson in 1865.

-the Home for Colored Refugees.

And so, the Army has instructed that if any refugee arrives at Camp Nelson, they will be welcome.

-Here at last, they were finally safe and, before long, recognized as free.

Stories of refugees finding safety in America can be found across history, and those from the past still resonate today.

-I grew up in a refugee community.

Those are the people that I knew growing up.

Their families were all from South Vietnam, and that was my perspective.

For me, I'm a military historian, but I'm also a son of refugees, and this is a refugee site.

♪♪ -Outside the safety of Camp Nelson, waves of violence and lawless behavior continue.

For African American soldiers and escapees, bands of armed rebel fighters add further risk to their already perilous lives.

♪♪ Guerrillas take the Confederate cause to the extreme, raining terror on those who dare to pick up a gun and fight for the U.S. Army.

♪♪ One soldier traveling through Kentucky described seeing so many guerrillas, he declared it, "worse than the front."

The problem becomes so bad, Union leaders declare martial law in Kentucky, angering local Confederate sympathizers.

But this decision does little to stop the violence.

In fact, many guerrillas openly flaunt their exploits.

-When you read what they're writing, they're fighting for the Southern cause.

They're fighting for all the things that every other soldier went to war for, for the South.

But I really think they're fighting for themselves.

They're getting all the liquor they want, all the money they want.

-One gang is especially feared in this part of Kentucky.

Being in a Union state, the rebels are on the wrong side of the law, but that doesn't slow them down.

Its members include Marcellus Jerome Clark, Sam "One-Arm" Barry, and Henry McGruder.

Residents close their shops and hide when word spreads that the gang is coming through town.

And when they arrive, they are hard to miss.

-They had great plumes in their hats.

They were very dashing.

They were all great horsemen.

So they presented a very gallant figure, but the truth of the matter was, they were hardened killers and they were very good at their business.

-And these men are well aware of what is happening at Camp Nelson.

January 1865.

Two months after Camp Nelson's refugee crisis, Samuel Truehart, Newton Bush, and George White set off with the rest of Company E on what should be a routine mission.

-The Union Army requisitions the purchase of 900 cattle in Central Kentucky, but they've got to get them to Louisville.

So they assign the 5th United States Colored Cavalry the job of doing that.

-The mission would change the trajectory of their and their families' lives for decades to come.

Food has become a major factor in the war.

Farmers struggle to keep up with the demands of the armies, especially with so many of their sons and laborers off to battle.

Even away from the front lines, these are dangerous, unpredictable times.

-There was wide rumors in the countryside of this giant train of cattle leaving Camp Nelson.

-The rumors claim the U.S. Army is confiscating cattle from already stressed farms.

-Now, you have to understand, in Kentucky, the farmers are reeling, so this takes the countryside by storm, and they're thinking, "These guys are running through the countryside, taking our cattle."

-By January 23, 1865, Truehart and the rest of Company E are on the road to the Louisville slaughterhouses.

-So, it's about 75, 80 men, half in front, half in back.

-Once again, they're led by a white officer.

Another officer carries cash to purchase any additional feed or cattle the army might need.

The massive herd fans out across Central Kentucky's hilly landscape.

Along the way, many soldiers, like Bush and Truehart, will pass near or even through the counties they had escaped from.

Even outside of battle, they remain vulnerable.

The loud, lumbering cattle make the group an easy target.

On January 24th, they hunker down for the night.

The soldiers sleep outside with the cattle, while their lead officer is quartered inside a nearby farmhouse.

Meanwhile, the notorious band of guerrilla fighters continues to terrorize the countryside.

And then they catch wind of the cattle drive heading in their vicinity.

-That rumor had gotten to Sam "One-Arm" Barry, and so he put the call out, and they all came together.

Now, were they really worried about people stealing cows?

I don't know.

There was a Union paymaster there.

There's a lot of money in that lockbox.

-The trio of investigators has pieced together what happened next from firsthand accounts, military reports, news articles, and local lore.

As the soldiers begin their day on January 25th, they face a deep cold that has settled on the countryside.

But nothing else seems out of the ordinary.

Then, suddenly, more than a dozen mounted guerrillas appear over a hill and rush toward the rear of the herd.

[ Gunshot ] They're each armed with six-shot pistols.

The soldiers of Company E are still armed with their cumbersome rifles.

[ Indistinct shouting ] They can only fire a single bullet at a time and must dismount to reload.

[ Indistinct shouting ] [ Gunshot ] -They're carrying these long arms instead of carrying the traditional shorter weapon that men could fire on horseback.

-I mean, by the time you get that musket up, try to get it loaded and fired, they're not going to have a great amount of ability to defend themselves or fire back when somebody's blazing away with a pistol.

[ Gunshot ] So there wasn't much -- much that those guys could do, unfortunately.

♪♪ -So, once the attack occurred, there was no leadership, there was no organization, there was no response.

And most of the men were shot either trying to get away or in the back, or -- It was not really a battle.

It was basically -- basically a slaughter.

-By wearing a uniform, these men were not protected.

They were not given quarter.

They were not given the rights of soldiers.

-It was just one other incident of the brutality faced by these -- these troopers in 1864 and 1865.

-Newspaper accounts report that locals quickly buried the bodies in a long trench.

The next day, a dispatch reaches Camp Nelson, requesting additional troops.

But as far as is known, no one logs the location of the gravesite.

The soldiers never receive a proper military burial.

-There was never any efforts to identify what happened to those men.

I mean, there was no efforts to figure out where they were buried, what happened to them, because -- and in large part because they were colored troops, because they were dispensable.

-They just said, "Missing in action at Simpsonville."

That's how it was recorded.

♪♪ -Jerry Miller has narrowed his search for the soldiers' unmarked grave to a length of highway near Simpsonville.

♪♪ His detective work has identified a series of key details related to the massacre.

♪♪ -Once the cattle come through Simpsonville, they top a hill, which is a few hundred yards behind me, and it's then that 15 guerillas chooses to attack.

The skirmish happened a half a mile west of Simpsonville.

So depending on where you start that half-mile count, you're right in this stretch of United States 60.

-Along this stretch of land, Jerry's discovered two sites that could be where the men were buried.

The first sits within a historic African American cemetery that dates from around the same time.

Hiding in plain sight, it could be significant.

-So, was that why they possibly buried the soldiers in the cemetery?

We don't know exactly.

♪♪ -Philip Mink leads the Office of State Archeology at nearby University of Kentucky.

-So, when we walk in here, we definitely see that this is an old cemetery.

The depressions in the ground are usually an indication of old graves.

-The flowers also offer a clue.

-Vinca was very popular ground cover for cemeteries.

It's a sign for us as archaeologists to start piquing up our interest and looking a little closer.

♪♪ -Phil Mink has surveyed portions of this site before, but there is one spot that has long intrigued Jerry -- a mound covered in large stones.

-So, this is an area that I've always thought was a likely area of a mass grave.

Why would you pile rocks -- large rocks, like this one -- in an area if -- if you weren't trying to protect something?

You know, Phil, it's -- it's always struck me.

I get back in this area of the cemetery, and I almost get cold chills because -- thinking that the spirits of these men are with us.

And, you know, if someone has a memory of you, you're not forgotten.

♪♪ -Later, Phil is joined at the site by two of his assistants to use ground-penetrating radar.

-What we actually are looking for are differences in soils.

You're not actually finding the skeletons.

So, when somebody is buried, we're taking out soil, putting the body back in.

And so that soil coming out and going back in is creating difference in soil density, it holds water different.

The physical properties are just different enough that when we move the radar over it, we can detect those changes.

♪♪ -Before Phil and his team analyze the readings from the cemetery, they move to the second potential burial site, one that was identified on a long-forgotten highway survey.

-In 1936, the state of Kentucky was building a good road system.

And they did a professional survey using the technology of the day.

-On the survey, one detail appeared to be a direct connection to Jerry's search.

-In this one spot, there was a cross, and it said, "Civil War Burial Mound."

♪♪ -Today, that mound sits in a field owned by the same family since before the Civil War.

♪♪ -Archaeology is a non-renewable resource.

As the stuff gets plowed over and destroyed, the less there is there.

And so, we're lucky that we have landowners who have preserved this space.

-With fellow archaeologists, Phil has cross-referenced the 1936 survey with data collected using the latest mapping technology, yielding eye-opening results.

-We were able to geo-reference this map, overlay it on modern aerial photography, and see roughly where we think that Civil War mound is.

-Additional LIDAR data provide laser-accurate measurements of the site.

-That area there we outlined in red is the mound.

You can actually see in a 3-D perspective that there is an actual mound there.

-The shape resembles a rectangle, suggesting that it could have been made by human hands.

This theory aligns with what Phil has seen at other burial sites.

-We expect that they were probably laid out east to west, which is a Christian burial tradition.

And so they would've probably each been put next to each other in the pit and not piled on top of each other.

♪♪ Archaeologists like to say, "X never marks the spot," but here we have a cross.

We have a cross right there.

-[ Laughs ] We have a cross!

-And this gives us a whole different set of information that we can start looking at.

♪♪ -With their second target area selected, Phil calls in the EduceLab mobile team from the University of Kentucky.

Their tools will give him a look below the surface of the mound in the middle of the Simpsonville field.

♪♪ -So, the first thing we're going to do is take out the drones.

They can cover a much larger area at slightly lower precision.

And then, based on those results, we're hoping that there'll be some areas that we can then target with the terrestrial GPR.

-Well, it's good that we're here now because, in two months, that ryegrass is going to be 5 feet high.

♪♪ I-I just -- I can't wait to see what it shows us.

I'm all smiles.

I'm ready to see some action now.

-This orange box contains a ground-penetrating radar transmitter.

Skimming the search area from less than a meter above, it can "read" the ground up to 2 meters below its surface.

-It's heading out, and it's now programmed, and it's beginning to collect that data.

It'll go much quicker, much faster than when we're hand-pushing it.

-Now this is a great perspective on that site because, from the road -- and I've been on that road thousands of times -- you can't see that hump.

-But you can here.

You can slightly see that hump there and so, yeah, no, that's -- that's great.

♪♪ -After the GPR covers roughly 2,000 square meters, the team turns to a magnetometer capable of sensing objects like bullets, belt buckles, and bayonets buried in the ground.

♪♪ With the wide-scale data-gathering complete, Phil now brings out his high-resolution terrestrial GPR.

He'll examine the mound in 50-centimeter increments.

He and his team will need days to analyze the data collected from the cemetery and the field.

But if there are any anomalies to be found at either site, these tools will have picked them up.

It's the best chance yet at finally finding this lost burial site.

Now, the wait begins.

Well, I think everything's riding on, in terms of where do we go from here, if this technology doesn't show promise, if it doesn't show that, yes, there's a mass grave here, I-I don't know what my next step would be.

♪♪ -While 22 murdered soldiers remain buried somewhere near Simpsonville, the details surrounding the events of January 25, 1865, are slowly being unearthed.

♪♪ Juanita White has discovered what happened to George White and Newton Bush in a pair of obscure military pension files.

And she also found an important bond between their families.

After the war, George White's mother, whom George had been supporting with the money he earned for his service, applied for a pension as his next of kin.

In the application, Newton Bush testified on behalf of his friend and brother-in-arms.

-Okay.

This is George White's file, where Newton, Reverend Newton Bush, gives a deposition.

And in the deposition, he says, "I know that he was killed in the said battle because I saw him lying dead on the battlefield."

-George White, just 19 years old, shot dead in Simpsonville.

Newton Bush described his own experience at Simpsonville in his pension record.

-He said in his deposition that, "It was near Simpsonville on at about the 25th of January 1865, while engaged in action with the rebels," that he had received a gunshot wound to the left side of his head, near the left ear.

And so, this wound was causing him a problem.

It would just be wonderful if that site was ever found.

And perhaps, through this, George White and the rest of the people will be recognized because of the work that they had done.

-Sam Truehart survived the Simpsonville Massacre, but no oral or written history has been found to explain exactly how.

-We suspect he may -- hopefully, that he was actually in the front of the herd and not at the back of the herd that got attacked.

-There are still many unanswered questions about David's great-great-grandfather's experience.

-Did you hear the shots?

Did you have any clue what happened to the others at the back of that herd?

And how many of those men that were killed were men that you knew?

[ Gunshots, men shouting faintly ] ♪♪ -Back near Simpsonville, Phil Mink is ready to present his conclusions about the two potential burial sites.

The data from the mound of rocks in the cemetery did not reveal any evidence of a mass grave.

But what he found at the second site, the mound in the field, is a different story.

-So, initially, Jerry sent me the map, and so the first thing we did was take that map, and then as we referenced that and overlaid it on modern aerial topography and then brought in the LIDAR and we can see a mound there, that was a good piece of evidence to me that that's a scenario that we should check out.

Then we brought the drones out.

The drones collected the data.

And at least in the GPR, it seemed to indicate that there was some sort of anomaly.

Then the next step is this terrestrial geophysics.

We collected that data, I processed it, and I saw what was appearing there.

-The data shows up as a color-coded, three-dimensional diagram.

Phil is looking for unexpected shifts in the color pattern that represent changes in the soil.

As he examines the cross-sections of the study area, he notices a distinct change 4 to 5 feet beneath the surface.

-We are about roughly 4 meters or so wide, 20 meters long, and right kind of in the center of the mound.

So, this is the exact pattern I would expect to see if I was looking for a mass grave.

-Phil hopes to continue his investigation after the growing season.

It will be a chance to get into the soil and determine what his instruments appear to have discovered.

Even before an archeological excavation takes place, though, the data collected by the ground-penetrating radar are striking.

-That's always the challenge with archaeology.

We can make inferences based on the evidence that we have.

And my interpretation based on what I have at this point in time is that that seems to be there.

You've got a more square area... -As he shares his findings with the team, there is a sense that the mystery of where these soldiers were buried may soon be solved and that these same soldiers may be closer to receiving the military honors they earned.

♪♪ After the war, Kentucky's surviving Black soldiers still had to fight for respect and even their lives.

Many, like Newton Bush, returned home free only to find that the violent racism they had known continued.

-It just blows me away the stuff that they had to go through in order to live.

I mean, the lynchings that were going on -- and it became even worse after the war.

There were people who would go around trying to find out if certain African Americans had fought or were a soldier, and then they would harass them.

KKK and other like-minded groups were harassing, killing, hanging African Americans.

-But amidst this turmoil, Bush was able to help George White's mother secure that pension, allowing her to support her family for years to come.

Shortly after the war, the victims of guerrilla violence did receive some justice.

-Most all the guerrillas that fought in Kentucky were hanged or shot.

There are very few of them that actually made it out of the war.

McGruder was hung in Louisville.

So was Jerome Clark.

-As for Samuel and Mary Truehart, their story had a happier ending.

They joined the wave of Black families who left the pervasive racism of the South and moved to Kansas.

Those participating in this great exodus were known as Exodusters.

-It was an opportunity for them to have land and begin to build their families and build their wealth.

-And as the Trueharts settled into post-war life, they continued to have their portraits taken.

-So this is a photo of the Truehart family, and then, on the bottom, we see both Sam and Mary.

But we could see, based on the fact that they took this photo in a studio and the fact that how they were dressed, they were not doing too bad for a family that was headed by two folks who had been slaves until 1864.

-This image, and the picture of Samuel Truehart in his USCC uniform, have become more than just treasured family heirlooms.

-We would hope that folks recognize that he represents just countless other men who also sacrificed similarly, stepped up to really achieve their freedom and fight for the freedom of their people.

♪♪ -After years of fundraising, Jerry Miller and others raised enough money in 2010 to erect a memorial recognizing the fallen soldiers of the 5th USCC Company E. It stands along the same road where they were massacred.

And today, he is unveiling a new roadside marker to commemorate what happened here and at Camp Nelson.

♪♪ -I can't tell you how proud I am of the work that our team has put together.

-Coming here today and seeing for the first time the actual grave markers with all these names, I think was, just for me, quite impactful.

Because I almost feel like these are almost like family because of the connection I've had to them over the last 30 years.

-This memorial, and the work of this team of tireless citizen researchers and archaeologists, will ensure that the story of the 5th United States Colored Cavalry and the troops' families will be told long into the future.

♪♪ ♪♪