Burial of the Paoli Dead

Local residents and returning American soldiers buried the dead from the Paoli attack in a mass grave near the battlefield. The burial detail reported finding bodies with multiple bayonet wounds, reinforcing the narrative that the British had committed atrocities against men who were no longer fighting.

The burial site became an early memorial, tended by the local community. It remains the Paoli Battlefield today, preserved as a small park with a monument erected in 1817 — one of the earliest Revolutionary War memorials in the country. The site's preservation reflects how deeply the Paoli attack embedded itself in local and national memory.