Friday, September 25, 2020
Hunting for relics
Chicago, IL – -(AmmoLand.com)- After the beginning of the Civil War in April of 1861, fighting quickly spread across the southern states. The mountains and valleys of southern West Virginia saw many months of conflict with the sounds of gunfire, the rattle of sabers, and the screams of soldiers. When the battles were over, remnants of the skirmishes were left behind. Fired and dropped bullets were quickly stomped into the soil by the boots of running infantry. Fallen leaves covered lost buttons, buckles, and other items. Muskets, canteens, spurs, and more were also lost and forgotten.
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In the 70's I lived right in the middle of the Cross Keys Battle Field. They would plow for corn and I'd walk the rows and pick up lots of ball and arrow head. I found a dump once digging full of old medicine bottles. I later learned there was a field hospital near that site. Then they started the new way a planting corn without plowing. Bummer.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid living in Germany, we'd do the same thing with the farmer's field right next to the kaserne. I had a whole box full of bullets, live cartridges and frag. Of course, this was in 1966, so WWII had been over only 21 years at that point.
ReplyDeleteNice. An advertisement for a metal detector posing as an article on found Civil Ware era artifacts. WTH?
ReplyDeleteNemo
Times, they be hard right now.
DeleteMadMarlin
Personally, I think there are a LOT of skirmish sites, minor battlefields, etc. that have never been explored and probably never will be, simply because they've been lost to history.
ReplyDeleteThere's a skirmish site a mile south of here marked by a small sign outside of some tobacco barns. It says that it's the 'approximate' location of a skirmish between Union troops and guerillas, so I don't know where the fighting actually took place. Hell, part of it might have been fought on my property.
DeleteDude's got balls digging up artillery shells and cannon balls - some guy got himself blown up with one a few years back.
ReplyDeleteI've got a couple of minie balls my grandparents found around Gauley Bridge. People used to be able to pick up cannon balls on the other side of the river.
ReplyDelete