Musket balls, Continental Army buttons stamped "USA," and evidence of a surprise British ambush are coming to Cos Cob on Thursday, August 6, when battlefield archaeologist Dr. Kevin McBride presents new findings from the only inland Revolutionary War battle fought in Connecticut.
McBride, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Connecticut and principal investigator for Heritage Consultants LLC, will speak at the Greenwich Historical Society's America's 250th Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. The event takes place at the society's campus at 47 Strickland Road.
His team has surveyed roughly 400 acres in Ridgefield using metal detectors, ground-penetrating radar, and shovel test pits, recovering more than 350 battle-related artifacts from the April 27, 1777, engagement, according to the Greenwich Sentinel. The finds include British and American musket balls, buckles, gun parts, and a pocket watch winder. At the Fourth Engagement site, the team recovered three pewter buttons bearing the monogram "USA," which represent the earliest known archaeological evidence of Continental Army soldiers wearing insignia declaring allegiance to the United States, just ten months after the nation's founding.
What the artifacts reveal
The physical evidence is rewriting parts of the battle's narrative. Findings from the Second Engagement show the fighting was fiercer than historians believed, with artifact patterns indicating a British ambush that scattered Patriot forces and left Major General David Wooster mortally wounded. Nearly all British musket fire recovered consists of impacted balls, while most American ammunition was unimpacted and likely dropped in the chaos.
At the Fourth Engagement site, where the British pursued retreating Americans through town, impacted musket balls from both sides and dropped "buck and ball" American ammunition contradict earlier accounts that described only sporadic fire. The evidence points to a more serious fight and a Patriot attempt to regroup.
"The density of battle objects is really high. It's not an occasional musket ball sniping," McBride has said of the Second Engagement site. "You can imagine the Americans are being attacked and routed. They're panicked, and they're dropping a lot of things. They're running, they're getting wounded, they're getting killed."
The archaeology project began after 2019, when skeletal remains discovered under the foundation of an early 18th-century house in Ridgefield were identified as likely Revolutionary War soldiers buried in an unmarked grave. The Ridgefield Historical Society subsequently received two National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program grants to fund the fieldwork. In 2026, Preservation Connecticut awarded McBride its top individual honor, the Harlan H. Griswold Award for Historic Preservation.
How to attend
A social hour with light bites from Grazing Charcuterie Bar and beverages begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Museum Lobby. The lecture starts at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by audience Q&A.
Tickets cost $55 for Greenwich Historical Society members and $60 for non-members. Contact Mercedes Arensberg at [email protected] or 203-869-6899, ext. 13.
The Greenwich Historical Society's America's 250th series, which has been running since early 2025, features monthly lectures on archaeology, fashion, historic preservation, and local history. The society's next family program, "Dress for 1776," takes place Thursday, August 13.
