Auction of Civil War soldier’s skull criticized

Plans to sell the skull of a Civil War soldier by a Pennsylvania auction house on Tuesday have drawn sharp criticism from some of the country’s leading Civil War historians.

According to a news account in the York Daily Record in York, Pa., the skull and 13 other artifacts were found on a Gettysburg farm in 1949, about two miles north of a field hospital set up in a barn during the Battle of Gettysburg.

The skull and related artifacts, with accompanying handwritten and notarized documents, were given to the Estate Auction Company several months ago as a consignment for sale, according to the news story.