Their remains sat, unmarked, in shallow graves at the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va., for decades. Now, some 150 years after the Civil War, the bodies of 40 Confederate soldiers discovered over the past two months will receive a proper memorial. 
 
 "It's been very meaningful to us to find these spots, identify these soldiers and bring closure to families," said Ted Delaney, the cemetery's assistant director, who, along with a team of archaeologists, uncovered the exact resting place of some 40 Confederate soldiers as well as the plots where Union soldiers were once buried and later exhumed. 
 
 Delaney told FoxNews.com that, beginning in April, the team dug a 45-by-10-foot trench within "Yankee Square" at the cemetery where they found a mix of red and orange squares, which they determined were Confederate soldiers' graves. He said 35 to 40 graves were found during this latest search and that 50 were uncovered in the same area last year. 
 
 Delaney said he is now tasked with identifying each soldier's grave and giving it the tribute it deserves. 
 
 "Our goal is to put a marker at each grave space to identify the soldier and note when he died and his military unit," said Delaney, who is optimistic about the project because, "the undertaker's notes are so detailed and complete." 
 
 He said that when all is done, about 80 Confederate soldiers will be properly identified. He noted that the remains of Union soldiers were exhumed and removed from the plot of land in 1866. 
 
 "This has been an incredible process of discovery," he said. "It’s always been very frustrating for those descendants who come to us because they can't find their ancestor's grave. Now we can bring some of them closure." 
 
 The task to identify and maintain the graves of Civil War soldiers at the cemetery began in April 2013. Delaney and his team are receiving an annual $2,500 grant from the Virginia Department of Historic Records Work to document unknown graves within "Yankee Square," which was first intended as a burial site for Union soldiers and then came to include Confederate soldiers -- many of whom died from diseases such as small pox. 
 
 Delaney's crew is not the first to uncover unidentified Civil War graves in recent years. 
 
 Sam Ricks, who works as graves registrar for the Sons of Confederate Veterans' Pennsylvania Division, has long been on a quest to restore the graves of America's bravest. Ricks and his team are responsible for uncovering unmarked graves at Mount Moriah cemetery, an estimated 380-acre historic graveyard straddling Philadelphia and Yeadon, Pa., and the state's largest -- where 2,300 Navy service members and Marines dating from the Revolutionary War to the War of 1812 all the way to the Korean and Vietnam wars are buried. 
 
 In 2007, Ricks received an unusual request, which led him to a discovery that was "like finding a needle in a haystack." 
 
 Ricks was approached by a descendant of Nathan Tiernon Walton, a cadet from the Virginia Military Institute who, along with 294 other cadets, fought the Battle of New Market in Virginia for the Confederate Army on May 15, 1864. The battle is well-known to Civil War historians because the small Confederate Army, which consisted largely of the teenage cadets from VMI, defeated the Union soldiers and forced them out of the Shenandoah Valley. 
 
 Walton later became estranged from his family when he left his wife and daughter in Baltimore to find work in Atlanta and later Philadelphia, according to Ricks. 
 
 "He was a recluse," Ricks said, "And no one ever knew what became of him." 
 
 It was long believed by the family that Walton was buried in Baltimore, alongside his wife. But that theory was discounted when Walton's great-grandson, Bill Banks, visited Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore and found no evidence Walton was buried there. 
 
 Banks was on a quest that began 100 years ago with his grandmother, Walton's daughter, who handed down a large cast iron Southern Cross of Honor grave marker to be placed at her father's grave if it was ever found. 
 
 It was later discovered that Walton died in Philadelphia during the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918, leading Ricks to eventually find his unmarked grave on Memorial Day in 2008 at Philadelphia Memorial Park in Frazer, Pa. 
 
 In November 2008, Ricks, as well as descendants of Walton, were finally able to mark his grave 90 years after his death with the cross passed down by his daughter. 
 
 "I'm reminded of this case every Memorial Day," Ricks said. "Walton's daughter had handed down to generations a marker to be placed at his grave should it ever be found. And then we actually did it. We fulfilled her wish." ||||| A lost medieval cemetery discovered under Cambridge University contained graves that had been pre-dug in anticipation of winter deaths, archaeologists have discovered. 
 
 The huge graveyard was found during excavations beneath the Old Divinity School at St John's College during recent refurbishments. 
 
 The mass cemetery, which was far larger than the small burial ground which archaeologists had expected, contained around about 1,300 burials, including about 400 complete skeletons. 
 
 And experts made the sinister discovery that many of the skeletons did not fit their graves. 
 
 An Archaeological Journal report on the excavation said: “This suggests that some, but not all of the graves may have been dug in advance of being needed. 
 
 “One possibility is that this occurred prior to the winter, when ground conditions would have potentially made digging graves considerably more difficult.” 
 
 One skeleton found in a grave which was too big for the body 
 
 The bodies, which mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, are burials from the medieval Hospital of St John the Evangelist which stood opposite the graveyard until 1511, and from which St John's College takes its name. 
 
 Craig Cessford, from the university's department of archaeology and anthropology, said it was one of the largest finds of its kind in the UK. 
 
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 Although the existence and location of the cemetery have been known to historians since at least the mid-twentieth century, the sheer scale and extent of the burial ground was unclear until now. 
 
 The vast majority of burials were without coffins, many even without shrouds, suggesting the cemetery was primarily used to serve the poor. 
 
 There were very few bodies belonging to women and children - probably because its main purpose was to cater for "poor scholars and other wretched persons" and pregnant women were excluded from its care. 
 
 Grave-goods such as jewellery and personal items were only present in a handful of burials but they included a jet crucifix and the head of a woman. 
 
 A crucifix found in one of the graves 
 
 Dr Cessford said: "Evidence for clothing and grave-goods is rarer than at most hospital cemeteries. 
 
 "This is principally because this was a purely lay graveyard with no clerics present. 
 
 "Items were found in graves that might represent grave-goods, but their positions were ambiguous and it is equally possible that they represent residual material from earlier activity at the site." 
 
 Originally a small building on a patch of waste ground, the hospital grew with church support to be a noted place of hospitality and care for both university scholars and local people. 
 
 Archaeologists working at Cambridge 
 
 Despite local rumours linking the hospital cemetery to the Black Death, no evidence of this disease was found on any of the remains and the team did not find any sign of large burial groups from that period of the 14th century. 
 
 In later centuries, plague victims in Cambridge were buried on local grazing land such as Midsummer Common, and it is likely that the same locations were used in the medieval period as well. 
 
 Most of the bodies were buried in neatly laid-out rows or deposited in a building on the site. 
 
 The cemetery was found to have had gravel paths and a water well, along with seeds from various flowering plants, suggesting that much like today's cemeteries, it was a place for people to come and visit their deceased loved ones. 
 
 The bodies surprisingly did not exhibit many serious illnesses and conditions that would have required medical attention. 
 
 The graveyard was found during the refurbishment of St John's College at Cambridge University ||||| Story highlights Anthropologists, authorities exhumed casket of Thomas Curry in Philadelphia this week 
 
 Exhumation part of probe into deaths, disappearances at Florida's infamous Dozier School 
 
 Curry's casket had no human remains; authorities now searching for body at Dozier 
 
 Ex-students allege beatings, sexual abuse, disappearances; ex-guards deny abuse occurred 
 
 For almost 90 years, the casket lay beneath the earth, Thomas Curry's family believing the teen who died too young rested in peace there, in an unmarked plot with his great-grandparents. 
 
 Curry was a charge of Marianna, Florida's Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a now infamous juvenile detention facility that closed in 2011 for budgetary reasons, capping a chilling, 111-year legacy of brutality. 
 
 From 1900 to 1952, according to a court document, 100 boys died there, but only about half were buried on the reform institution's grounds. Others were shipped home to their families. 
 
 Curry, 17, became part of that tally in 1925 when he died "under suspicious circumstances while escaping Dozier twenty-nine days after arriving," says the court order permitting his exhumation this week. 
 
 The coroner at the time ruled Curry's manner of death was unknown. The ledger entry at the Dozier school said he was "killed on RR Bridge Chattahoochee, Fla." Another document at Old Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia says he was "killed by train." No one from Dozier ever reported his death to the state. 
 
 9 photos: Florida graves mystery 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Florida graves mystery – After their investigation at a former Florida boys school led them to a grave in Philadelphia, anthropologist Erin Kimmerle and Cpl. Tom McAndrew of the Pennsylvania State Police unearth a casket filled with wood. It was supposed to contain the remains of Thomas Curry. According to state and school records, nearly 100 children died while at the Dozier School for Boys, which closed in 2011. Hide Caption 1 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Florida graves mystery – Anthropologists begin digging to unearth what they believe are the remains of dozens of children buried on the grounds of a former reform school in Marianna, Florida. Hide Caption 2 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Florida graves mystery – On August 6, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and his Cabinet voted to allow the University of South Florida forensics team to excavate and examine the bodies. Hide Caption 3 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Search for answers at gravesite near school – In 2012, forensic scientists sifted through 100-year-old paperwork to determine who is buried in this makeshift cemetery on the grounds of a former Florida reform school for boys. Hide Caption 4 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Search for answers at gravesite near school – Dr. Erin Kimmerle is part of the scientific investigation team looking into who is buried at the grave site. She says it is a humanitarian effort to identify and remember those who died. Hide Caption 5 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Search for answers at gravesite near school – Robert Straley says he endured 10 months of abuse at the reform school. A 2008-09 state investigation into similar allegations found no wrongdoing. Hide Caption 6 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Search for answers at gravesite near school – Ovell Smith Krell says her brother Owen died in 1940 under mysterious circumstances at the reform school. When she and her family went to find out what happened, the school said he was already buried. In August, Kimmerle's team found his body. Krell was elated and told CNN that the discovery allowed her to keep a decades-old vow to her parents that she would bring Owen home. Hide Caption 7 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Search for answers at gravesite near school – Forensic anthropologists -- who once worked for the U.N. in the former Yugoslavia searching for mass graves -- used ground penetrating radar to find out how many remains were buried in a small makeshift cemetery built on the grounds of the former reform school for boys near Tallahassee, Florida. Hide Caption 8 of 9 9 photos: Florida graves mystery Search for answers at gravesite near school – Metal pipe crosses mark the graves. Hide Caption 9 of 9 
 
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 He was returned in a casket to his family, who, in turn, buried him in Philadelphia. Or so the family thought. 
 
 It wasn't until a state investigation beginning in 2008 that Curry's death certificate was found at Dozier. It said he died of a crushed skull from an "unknown cause." 
 
 And it wasn't until Tuesday, when University of South Florida anthropologists who have been working to unearth and identify remains on the former campus visited Philadelphia with Pennsylvania authorities, that the family learned Curry wasn't in the casket -- no bones, no clothing, no sign of him at all. 
 
 "Wood. Layers of pieces of wood," said anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, explaining what she and her team found in the casket. "It was completely filled with wooden planks." 
 
 At first, the team thought they had the wrong grave, but then they found Curry's great-grandparents beneath the wood-filled casket. 
 
 'Decades of efforts to deceive' 
 
 Kimmerle was still incredulous Wednesday, as was Cpl. Tom McAndrew of the Pennsylvania State Police, who along with Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Brendan O'Malley, was instrumental in clearing the path for Kimmerle's team to exhume Curry's remains, she said, 
 
 "It was a little bit of a shock. It was certainly anticlimactic," McAndrew said. "Something was shipped up from Florida, and it was buried, and someone believed it was Thomas Curry." 
 
 Does he think, as a law enforcement officer, that the finding is indicative of school officials' intent to deceive Curry's family nine decades ago? 
 
 "Absolutely," he said, but it's not surprising when you consider that the investigation into the Dozier school has uncovered "decades and decades of efforts to deceive, coverups, and not just by one but by many people." 
 
 McAndrew has been in contact with two of Curry's distant cousins, and while they weren't familiar with Curry or his death before Kimmerle's team began investigating, they've done what they could to advance the investigation, the police corporal said. 
 
 They've provided names from their family tree and handwritten notes from their mother. One of the cousins, Eileen Witmier, who is 61 and is the granddaughter of Curry's mom's sister, provided DNA to identify Curry -- had he been found. 
 
 "Their interest lies in justice being served," McAndrew said of the cousins. 
 
 Asked where his own interest lies, McAndrew gave a similar answer, but also noted that Kimmerle has been an invaluable ally to law enforcement. 
 
 Quid pro quo among professionals 
 
 The ex-chief anthropologist for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Kimmerle has conducted "isotope testing" in her lab to help McAndrew with homicide cases in Pennsylvania. 
 
 For one particularly high-profile case -- a pregnant teen found dismembered in suitcases in 1976 -- Kimmerle's team analyzed the woman's hair and teeth. Via isotope testing, Kimmerle was able to determine where the woman lived based on the water she consumed while alive. 
 
 Though police have yet to solve the case, they now know she was born in Europe and immigrated to the Southeastern United States at age 12, McAndrew said. 
 
 "When she turned to me for assistance, obviously I would've done anything for her," McAndrew said of Kimmerle. 
 
 Kimmerle had hoped, of course, that Curry's remains would unravel some of the mystery surrounding his death. 
 
 "We went into it trying to answer questions," she said. "What we have is more questions than answers." 
 
 But the investigation continues. Now armed with Witmier's DNA, Kimmerle's team can return to Marianna, about 65 miles west of Tallahassee, and attempt to match the sample to one of the dozens of bodies that have already been dug up on the 1,400-acre former campus. 
 
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 Though many of the boys died so long ago, it's important to find their family members, Kimmerle believes, if only because of the uncertainties surrounding their deaths and the controversy enveloping the supposed school where they died. 
 
 A dubious legacy 
 
 That bodies lay there was never a secret -- 31 rusty, white crosses marked the resting places of victims who died from a dormitory fire, influenza, pneumonia and other causes -- but Kimmerle's team has found a total of 55 bodies there so far. 
 
 Her team also has found records indicating that 22 boys who died at the school are unaccounted for. Already, Kimmerle and her colleagues have identified three sets of remains. One of those bodies was George Owen Smith, whose sister Ovell Krell, 85, told CNN in August she was elated that the seven-decade mystery surrounding her brother's death was finally solved. 
 
 Though ex-students provided detailed accounts of vicious beatings, sexual abuse and disappearances, guards and administrators who are still alive have denied the beatings occurred. 
 
 The state investigation in 2008 and 2009 said there was insufficient evidence of abuse at Dozier, but dozens of men, many of them now senior citizens, have come forward with stories. A support group for ex-students, dubbed The White House Boys, takes its moniker from the structure where boys say they were beaten with a leather strap attached to a wooden handle. 
 
 They were whipped until their underwear was embedded in their buttocks, The White House Boys say. Some were beaten unconscious. Crying or screaming out would earn you extra lashes, they say. 
 
 So while this week's exhumation didn't answer any of the myriad questions surrounding Dozier and its missing and dead boys, it was still an important part of the ongoing investigation, researchers and police said. 
 
 "It definitely had to be done," McAndrew said. "We had to at least open the grave if this investigation down in Florida is going to be resolved." 
 
 Remains of 2 more boys identified at shuttered Florida reformatory
– Archaeologists have in the last two months uncovered the unmarked graves of as many as 40 Confederate soldiers in Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va. That adds to the tally of about 50 unmarked Confederate graves found in the same part of the cemetery last year—a section known as Yankee Square that was originally created as a place to bury Union soldiers, though their remains were exhumed and moved in 1866, Fox News reports. The team's goal is to match up the graves with the "detailed" undertaker's notes that were made at the time, allowing the archaeologists to identify the soldiers buried there with markers noting each man's military unit and when he died. “It’s always been an unsatisfying answer for me to say, 'We know your ancestor is here somewhere, but we don't know exactly where,’” the cemetery’s assistant director told the News & Advance earlier this month. The graves are shallow ones, and the team has only needed to dig about 10 inches below the surface—not to the point of reaching a body, but until a red clay patch appears amid the orange dirt. The red clay indicates the presence of a body, as the deeper, darker dirt that was dug out to create the graves was often used to cover the body. "We can see any time that a hole or disturbance is put in the ground because the soil’s not the same," says one team member. The team has also determined that that crisp outlines of the graves indicate that they haven't been disturbed since they were made. But it did make two mysterious discoveries: some graves were placed perpendicularly over older graves, and others had a circle-shaped brown patch on top of them—perhaps the remnants of a patch of flowers. (Read about how archaeologists managed to uncover graves the Nazis tried to hide.)