Touch the Past

Book Review: "Co Aytch. A Sideshow of the Big Show" by Sam R. Watkins

2015-01-19T11:49:00.000-05:00

Sam R. Watkins, CSA

If you have any interest in the War of the Rebellion and haven't already read "Co Aytch," then you owe it to yourself to go out and get it now (see bottom of this article for a link to the free, ebook version online).

Crane's "Red Badge of Courage," Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," or "Chickamauga" are all stirring accounts of combat from the eyes of an infantryman in the War Between the States. But if you really want to know what it was like to be a foot soldier in the Civil War, read "Co Aytch" by Sam R. Watkins.

Watkins was a member of the First Tennessee Regiment or "Maury Grays" which numbered 120 members at the time he enlisted when he was twenty-one years old. Twenty years later, he wrote "Co Aytch,"to tell of the fellows who did the shooting and killing, the fortifying and ditching, the sweeping of the streets, the drilling, the standing guard, picket and videt, and who drew (or were to draw) eleven dollars per month and rations, and also drew the ramrod and tore the cartridge."

Watkin's memoirs are absolutely riveting. He fought in battles at Shiloh, Perryville, Chickamauga, Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Nashville and many other locales. He actually saw Jackson and Lee in the midst of battle. At the end of the war only seven of the original 120 members of Company H had survived and only 65 out of 1,200 of the entire First Tennessee Regiment remained.

Even a dry, factual account of Watkin's life would make for amazing reading. But his writing style and vivid imagery combined with the unique events he experienced first-hand make his memoirs an unforgettable read. For example:

My pen is unable to describe the scene of carnage and death that ensued in the next two hours. Column after column of Federal soldiers were crowded upon that line, and by referring to the history of the war you will find they were massed in column forty columns deep; in fact, the whole force of the Yankee army was hurled against this point, but no sooner would a regiment mount our works than they were shot down or surrendered, and soon we had every "gopher hole" full of Yankee prisoners. Yet still the Yankees came. It seemed impossible to check the onslaught, but every man was true to his trust ...

Talk about other battles, victories, shouts, cheers, and triumphs, but in comparison with this day's fight, all others dwarf into insignificance. The sun beaming down on our uncovered heads, the thermometer being one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and a solid line of blazing fire right from the muzzles of the Yankee guns being poured right into our very faces,singeing our hair and clothes, the hot blood of our dead and wounded spurting on us, the blinding smoke and stifling atmosphere filling our eyes and mouths, and the awful concussion causing the blood to gush out of our noses and ears, and above all, the roar of battle, made it a perfect pandemonium ...

I have heard men say that if they ever killed a Yankee during the war they were not aware of it. I am satisfied that on this memorable day, every man in our regiment killed from one score to four score, yea, five score men. I mean from twenty to one hundred each. All that was necessary was to load and shoot. In fact, I will ever think that the reason they did not capture our works was the impossibility of their living men passing over the bodies of their dead. The ground was piled up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees. I learned afterwards from the burying squad that in some places they were piled up like cord wood, twelve deep.

One of my personal takeaways from reading Co Aytch was that General Braxton Bragg was even more of a liability for the Confederacy than I'd previously thought. When serving under him, troop morale was brought to an all-time low by constant hangings, brandings, and even execution of deserters.

Almost every day we would hear a discharge of musketry, and knew that some poor, trembling wretch had bid farewell to mortal things here below. It seemed to be but a question of time with all of us as to when we too would be shot. We were afraid to chirp. So far now as patriotism was concerned, we had forgotten all about that, and did not now so much love our country as we feared Bragg. Men were being led to the death stake every day.

There are so many things in this account that history books fail to mention and the passage of time has obscured. If you're like me and want to know "what it was like," this truly is a must read account.

You can download a free, ebook version of Co Aytch. here.

January 2015 Finds To Date

2015-01-18T15:03:00.004-05:00

Going by my blog, you might conclude that I hadn't been relic hunting at all for the past several months. That's actually not the case, I've just been dedicating my (very!) limited free time to researching and detecting instead of blogging. Hopefully, I can catch up and reduce the backlog of planned articles.

January has actually been a productive month, especially for Confederate buttons. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of finding three CS buttons in one day.

The first of these buttons was found in the middle of quite a bit of "trash" signals. I call them that because I'm only interested in Civil War material and a lot of the other bits of brass, iron, silver, and (shudder) aluminum were unrelated to the War.

In any case, I found what appeared to be a brass or bronze coin bent in half amidst other targets representing over 200 years of history. I put the object in my plastic finds box and kept detecting.

It wasn't until I got home that evening and began cleaning things that I realized what I'd found was a North Carolina Sunburst button.

January finds (three hunts) including CS buttons

My efforts to straighten the button weren't very successful but at least it's recognizable for what it is —part of the uniform of a North Carolinian who fought the Northern invaders right up until the very end of the war.

That same day, I found another NC Sunburst in a spot I'd hunted several times before. The odd thing about it was that the signal was so blatantly obvious. I wondered how I had missed it while detecting in that area before. In my defense, the grass in this area grows and is cut back throughout the season and sometimes it's thicker in one place than another and the areas of thickness vary from one month to the next. So it's possible it was nestled under a tall clump of grass during my previous visits to the site.

Another possible explanation could be that the pervasive EMI from a nearby electrical fence simply masked the target before. Whatever the case, my takeaway was that it never hurts to to hunt known productive spots even after they may appear to be hunted out. Due to vicissitudes of weather, external factors such as EMI, your level of concentration, or simply poor coil discipline, it's quite possible to miss targets even when you think you're being diligent.

In fact, I think that most of the stories we come across where a detectorist gets a fancy new machine, promptly takes it to his "hunted out site" and scores major finds are simply the result of the increased percent likelihood of making finds that statistically results from repeated visits. If you really believe that you're covering an entire multi-acre site with that 10" chisel of double D detection field in one visit, then I have a virgin CS campground on the outskirts of Raleigh for you. Actually, I'm about to test this theory real soon by taking a new machine out to my main site. Stay tuned for the results ...

The third CS button I found was another one that I completely misidentified in the field. Finding a deeply buried, small, corroded brass button, I put it in my finds box thinking it was probably a general service or infantry Eagle cuff button. I'd found several of the latter in the vicinity so I had some basis for that conclusion. In any case, at home I proceeded to gently brush the face of the button with a toothbrush and was dumbfounded to see a large letter "I" appear with nothing else.

This was truly unexpected. It turned out to be a 19" diameter Confederate Lined "I" button, most likely from a vest but possibly also from a kepi. The button itself is a tad toasty from ground action (probably compounded by lime and fertilizer), but this brings my total CS buttons from this site to 14.

19mm Diameter, Confederate Lined "I" vest button.

Other notable finds are two Spencer cartridge casings and (my favorite) a Richmond Labs Sharps bullet.

Richmond Labs Sharps is second bullet on the left, bottom row

Most of these relics wouldn't have been found by the majority of detectorists out there. I'm not saying that boastfully because I had missed many of these targets myself on previous visits to the site. But unless someone knew this camp existed, and was determined to find additional relics and slowed way down to hear them, they would never apply themselves to the extent needed to discern targets. I find that very encouraging as it's increasingly difficult to locate sites that haven't been repeatedly hunted over the past 50 or so years.

The other good news about these relics is that they came from two distinct locations. So that means I've been fortunate enough to locate another CS camp. I'm hoping that continued efforts will pay off in the form of additional historically significant relics coming to light.

And Now for Something Completely Different
I metal detect for one reason —to locate relics of the Civil War that confirm my research. For that reason, whenever I find something of merely numismatic value, I pretty much don't care. For sure, there are lots of detectorists out there who specialize in coins—they can tell you anything about them—and who covet them above all else. I'd rather find a bullet any day.

Any day, that is, unless the coin is part of a Civil War site and was dropped by a soldier. Then and only then does it become valuable to me. Now let me add that I've never found a gold coin so this declaration probably hasn't been put to the ultimate test.

In any case, all this preamble is my way of of apologizing for what I'm about to do which is post a coin find. So, without further ado, here it is.

1831 Capped Bust Half Dime Obverse

1831 Capped Bust Half Dime Reverse

This half dime is amazingly immaculate given its age. Even for me, a non-coin guy, the crispness is pretty impressive. All I did was brush it lightly with a damp toothbrush. This coin, together with a few 3 Ringers and Type III Williams bullets, were found while searching for a large camp. These came from an associated picket post.

Into the Woods ...
All of the above finds were made in fields that have been farmed for hundreds of years and which continue to be farmed or serve as pasture. My finds from yesterday came out of what used to be farmland but is now deep, tangled, briar-infested woods.

I invited my friend Lanny to come along and shared the research with him that justified our visiting this particular location. I'll confess I also did it so he didn't think I'd completely lost my mind as we hiked back into the wilderness.

We weren't able to get to the center of the area of interest as I'd noted it on my handheld Garmin GPS. But we made our way around the perimeter in an attempt to find a spot where we could actually swing our detectors. Taking advantage of a hunter trail, we enjoyed a brief respite from briars. And while we walked, I casually swung my coil over the path waiting for the inevitable shotgun shell to appear.

And suddenly, I did get a signal but it read in the 70's on my T2 —that's brass and lead territory. I remarked to Lanny almost apologetically, "Well, I have to dig it ..." and out popped a piece of camp lead. Four feet away, I got another piece.

This didn't seem like much to Lanny and his facial expression indicated good natured skepticism. But for me, after staring at this map for months, it was confirmatory evidence that I was "there."

"There," of course, is where "They" were. "They" being the soldiers who fought in the Civil War in North Carolina. I pursue their ghosts wherever I can find them and finding evidence of their existence and presence is one of my greatest pleasures.

So, while Lanny was being an incredibly polite and tolerant friend, I was trying desperately now to penetrate the briars and get to a place to hunt. I will gloss over the details of this but let me just say that the briars in that particular neck of the woods ate well that day.

Finally, I got to a place where briars were few and far between and the original topography could be discerned. I turned on the T2 and started detecting at the bottom of a slope about 400 yards from where I'd found the camp lead.

Within 10 minutes of starting to search, I got a good signal at the base of a tree. Digging was difficult in the wet soil and with the abundance of roots but in short order, I was holding a .58 caliber "3 ringer."

I called Lanny to let him know the good news and learned that Lanny had momentarily lost his prescription lenses in the dense woods. Thankfully, he'd found them and started making his way to my position. I started detecting again, and 3 feet from the bullet I'd just found I got another good signal.

Yep, another bullet. Then another, and another. They were densely packed in this spot—both standard .58 miniés and Type III Williams Bullets. Evidence of the US soldiers who had camped here in April, 1865 and who I had tracked down to this very spot.

Yours truly in front of the area where soldiers dumped bullets in April 1865

It occurred to me that I hadn't heard from Lanny for a while so I phoned him. He answered, and in between muttered curses he told me he was making his way through the dense undergrowth to where I was. Eventually, he emerged, looking like someone who had survived a truly harrowing experience. He pointed to his prescription lenses and said, "Find of the day!"

But five minutes later, after I'd shown him where I was finding the bullets and as he prepared to do some detecting, he looked stunned and said, "Oh man, where's my shovel?" Sure enough, in his mortal combat with the briars, vines, and pines he'd somehow let go of it.

Now this was no ordinary shovel but a Predator Tools Piranha, a fine $100 digging instrument, the Cadillac of shovels. Now it was literally a needle in a haystack. We looked back at the mass of briars Lanny had emerged from and realized we would have to go back in there to find that shovel.

Well, long story short Lanny despaired of seeing his blue-handled friend ever again. We retraced what we thought were his steps but didn't see anything but mud and hostile limbs and vines. We both stopped to assess the situation, Lanny about 8 feet away from me. He was just about to say something I probably couldn't put on my blog when I said, "LANNY!" and pointed. Three feet away from both of us was his shovel standing upright in the ground where he'd planted it, probably to take my phone call. "Second best find of the day!" Lanny said with a grin.

This hunt was truly special because it confirmed my research methodology to myself and my sanity to a friend. We marched into the woods, guided only by coordinates I'd put into my GPS months ago, and came out with relics of the Civil War. And a shovel.

Diggin' In Virginia XXVIII

2015-01-14T16:26:00.003-05:00

Some Day 2 finds and the area they came from

Back to Beauregard
If you drive past the Beauregard Farm in Brandy Station Virginia, there's nothing to indicate the incredible events that its gently rolling fields have witnessed. I've touched on that history before and won't cover it again in this post but suffice to say, there's more to Beauregard than meets the eye—its hidden history makes it uniquely important.

Beauregard is my favorite site of any of the DIVs I've been fortunate enough to attend since my first DIV at Coles Hill in 2010. That's due in part to the sheer extent of the property. You can sit down, take a sip of water from your canteen, and gaze out over a vast landscape that, in its essentials, is little changed from 1863. Sure, the Flat Run has been dammed up, some roads are paved and there are more trees now than then, but the key topographic features absolutely (for me at least) have that unique Brandy Station feel that is also evinced from period photos. And some period structures remain, too. The Barbour house, from which Lee observed the Battle of Brandy Station, stands today amidst ancient oaks that themselves witnessed innumerable scenes of struggle. It's a moving experience to recover a relic within sight of that home knowing that the soldier who dropped it also looked upon the very same building.

Barbour House dubbed "Beauregard" in honor of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, CSA

So it was with great anticipation and excitement that I set out for DIV XXVIII. It was at my favorite site, the weather promised to be exceptional, and I felt a keen sense of gratitude toward the organizers, John and Rose Kendrick, for honoring me with an invitation. Knowing the site from having been there twice before, I derived a hunt plan. I marked on a map where I would start and where I would go next if the first choice wasn't producing. I spent hours on this until I had what I felt was a completely rational plan which I printed out and packed with all of my other gear.

This year, I had the pleasure once again of riding to Virginia with old friends Dwight and Keith. It's always an enjoyable experience as we devote the 4 or so hours to talking about our favorite topics: The Civil War, metal detecting, and relics. But this time it was made even more enjoyable by a visit to the White Oak Civil War museum in Falmouth. This museum deserves a future post and if you are a relic hunter, you owe it to yourself to visit in person.

At the pre-hunt meeting, there came the moment of truth anticipated by all who have attended a previous DIV -- The Distribution of the Map. This is a printed document showing the hunt boundaries and territories open for hunting. There are always rumors prior to every DIV. Maybe that bean field that wasn't open for hunting the last time will be huntable this time. Remember that spot with the tall grass where those South Carolina buttons were found? I hear that's been mowed, etc., etc. There are typically audible gasps and sounds of stifled delight from the largely camou-clad crowd as they absorb every particular detail of The Map.

Pre-hunt meeting about to commence

This time there was news from John. Another site was open to hunt in addition to the previous Beauregard acreage.. It was quite a drive from the main site but by most accounts its mysteries had never been plumbed by a pulse induction machine. This was serious indeed.

The possibilities posed by a new site kicked off a process of consideration in my own head that lasted the rest of the evening. It went something like this: At the first Spillman DIV, a heretofore undiscovered i.e., un-hunted cavalry camp was found. A ludicrous number of plates was recovered. I heard (I wasn't there, alas but had to be present for the birth of my son. Yes, it was a difficult choice.) that seven plates were found lined up under an oak tree. The relics in both quality and quantity were the type of thing you see in a Howard Crouch book. They were that good -- I mean we're talking big pieces of Civil War brass. So, the precedent was there, tantalizingly clear. The opportunity to hunt a new site might provide a Spillman-esque experience. How could one rationally pass that up?

By the time I woke up, I decided that I would go to the "new site" and start the hunt there instead of in the field around Beauregard. My exquisitely architected plan was out the window but, I told myself, it was out the window for a perfectly rational reason.

And then, after breakfast, after driving to Beauregard, and after John's morning talk, I had a change of heart. Literally as we were walking back to the truck, I decided I would stay and hunt near the Barbour house at the spot I'd designated on my original plan as point "A." The other guys looked at me like I was crazy (I'm accustomed to this by now) and I hurriedly got my pack, detector, and my shovel out of the truck so they could speed off to the new site and I could hoof it to point "A."

Here's what ultimately swayed me. I work in a super competitive, high stress, ridiculously fast-paced (one of the corporate buzzwords is "speed-of-light") job. I came to Beauregard to commune with the past, not compete with other relic hunters. I wanted the savor the experience of finding relics of the Civil War. I craved silence and the sounds of Virginia, not EMI from some guy walking up on me with their PI machine. I wanted the antipode of my every day.

So I strapped on my pack and started walking to point "A," my breath streaming over my shoulder in puffs like a steam engine. In mere minutes I was alone and the sun was beginning its ascent, bathing the hills in light that looked like something out of a dream or perhaps a memory, its edges worn smooth by time. Maybe the soldiers who fought here as young men while reflecting in later years on those days remembered the hills of Beauregard looking like this.

Dreamlike scenery on Day 1

I reached the spot where, at the last Beuaregard DIV, I'd recovered dozens of relics including massive .69 caliber minies. There was no one, I mean no one, in sight. I was completely and utterly alone with Beauregard and the echoes of the men who had camped in this place in 1863. I turned on the GPX 4800 --it seemed almost too good to be true--and I started slowly walking down the gradual slope toward Flat Run and over what I knew to be the center of the camp.

The camp

I think it might have been 5 seconds. Maybe 10 at most. But almost instantaneously I heard the unmistakable sound in my Grey Ghosts of a bullet. I pushed the blade of my shovel into the soil which was covered by a close-cropped growth of rye, dug a mid-sized hole, and out popped a .69 caliber round ball.

I looked at it laying there and, instead of grabbing it, I tried to take it in. A flock of at least 100 geese was flying over my head and I had the most intense sensation of The Past I think I have ever felt. My decision to come to this place had been the right one. No, I hadn't found a Kearny Cross or a plate, but as Howard Crouch wrote, quoting Steve Henry, a past president of the Northern Virginia Relic Hunters Association, "I don't collect relics, I collect history."

My first find of DIV XXVIII

For the next three hours or so, I had the entire hillside to myself. I ended up digging exactly one dozen .69 minies, an unidentified brass buckle, 19 .30 caliber buckshot (from buck and ball loads), several rivets, a J-hook, and various other pieces of knapsack hardware.

The first of several .69 miniés

.69 minié in situ

Another huge bullet out of the ground

One other relic is a bit of a mystery but it looks to me like a soldier may have been trying to fabricate a Sixth Corps badge. Here's a picture of the disk with the shape of a cross stamped into it. Hard to say, but Beauregard was part of the extended winter camp for the US 6th AC.

6th Corps Badge Attempt?

Eventually, I learned a lesson. If you whip out a camera and start taking pictures of whatever's lying in the bottom of your hole at DIV, it's the equivalent of blood in water to a shark. I was in the middle of taking some photos of bullets in situ for the blog and so I could re-live their discovery, when I happened to look up. By this time, around noon, I'd been digging in my spot for about five, blissful, uninterrupted hours. But eventually, folks began to show up on the surrounding hills. Whenever I'd start to dig, I would see them peering intently in my direction to see if I was finding anything. If I put something in my finds box, it resulted in at least a 25 yard closer trans-location of the encroaching hunters on my position. As I repeatedly recovered bullets and what not, the pack closed on my position and by now was maintaining a still respectful 50 yard distance.

Just me and the past ...

But the camera broke the camel's back. When I started taking pictures of the mysterious treasures in my hole, it was like a lunch whistle blew on a construction site. The entire pack of detectors simultaneously turned in my direction and started sweeping and marching rapidly in my direction. They closed to about 15 yards, saw my concentrated dig holes, and started swinging over them. My serenity, alas, was gone. That was okay, there was more to find at Beauregard and anyway most of these folks were swinging VLF machines. I wished them good luck, showed them a few of my finds, collected my pack, and moved on to point "B" on my hunt plan.

This location had yielded some nice CS bullets and buttons in previous hunts and abutted the Spillman farm. But a thick layer of corn husks on the ground made hunting here quite difficult. I spent a couple of hours and found little more than a big chunk of melted lead. But I closed out the day with a satisfyingly full pouch of relics.

Day 1 Finds

Day 2
I started out the second day in a location that hadn't been part of my plan and ended up repeating the experience from the day before with little to show for miles of walking and hours of swinging. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I learned that important lesson for the hundredth time that day-- if a location is producing, hunt it hard instead of wandering in search of the grail. So I returned to my original spot, now with considerably more dig holes not of my making, and hunkered down to see what else could be slumbering in the sacred soil.

It was another stunningly beautiful, short sleeves day. I began detecting in the same vicinity as I'd been the previous morning and the finds kept coming even though there was quite a crowd there now. My first relic was yet another .69 minie but this one had been carved. Eventually, I moved out of the concentrated ".69 camp" (I think there at least 5 areas at Beauregard called that) and into a different camp where the only bullets were standard .58 "3 ringers."

Carved .60 minié

Within an hour, I had a few bullets, some more buck and ball loads, and two general service eagle buttons in my pouch. The area began to attract more and more hunters, probably folks who had been to the "new site" the day before and deemed it unproductive (something which wasn't true, incidentally).

In spite of the crowd, I was still able to pull quite a few nice brass pieces out of this spot including a saber belt grommet with leather still attached, and an Eagle staff officer's button.

Day 2 Finds

Staff Officer's Button

Day 3
I decided to proceed with my original plan and headed to my third point of interest. This was an area near where several Shaler sectional bullets had been found at previous DIVs. Quite a few folks had been there the first day and my goal wasn't Shalers so much as Gardners. It was a bit of a hike from where I was dropped off but after an exhilarating walk on a beautiful day I turned the 4800 on and, about 10 yards from the road, dug a nice dropped 3 ringer followed by an Eagle button and a Type 2 Williams bullet. By the time I'd hunted my way to the hillside that was my preferred location, I noticed another person was already there. From his technique it was obvious that he was an experienced detector and his densely clustered dig holes attested to his success in the area.

We each maintained a respectful distance from each other, allowing us to hear the elusive deep signals otherwise drowned out by EMI. He continued to search the hillside while I detected the hill crest. Eventually, I got a piercingly loud brass signal. I dug, dug some more, then more, then even more. Finally, I found the target -- a New York button, lacking the back but with quite a lot of gilt still left. It was right on the top of that hill, about 15" or so deep. It sounded like it had been 2" deep! I was taking some pictures when the other fellow came over, introduced himself, and we compared finds. Sure enough, he'd been digging Gardner bullets whereas I, a mere thirty yards away, was finding only Yankee stuff.

New York Button

Eventually, it dawned on me that I was not just thirsty but genuinely dehydrated. I'd packed a lot of water but had already gone through it all. The amount of deep holes I was digging combined with the warm weather had parched me pretty thoroughly. So I started the long hike back to the DIV HQ at the Barbour House to get some lunch and libation.

As it turned out, I was at probably the farthest point on the map from the HQ and it took me a long time, even at my customary brisk walk, to get there. Shortly before I arrived, the pickups parked around HQ all started driving away en masse. This didn't bode well —it meant that lunch was over and folks were headed back out to get in the last hours of digging for this DIV.

Finally, I got there only to discover that the hot dogs were gone. I can't describe to you the profound sadness this caused me. But one of the committee members, I failed to get her name but she reminded me of many of my wonderful, doting female relatives who cared for me while growing up in the South, noticed my predicament. She brought me several cans of Sprite and it was like nectar —never had a soda tasted so good. Then she gave me several slices of pound cake and I sat down right there in the middle of the now empty parking lot without even bothering to take my pack off, and ate every last morsel of that heavenly cake. Thank you to my benefactress!

I was now fully restored and ready to get back to relic hunting. But where to go? I decided the field at hand was hard to beat so I strode out into a setting that looked more like a golf course than a hay and dairy farm much less a Civil War encampment, to see what I could find.

Before long, I got a round ball. Then a carved bullet. And then, a very faint signal.

Big hole, little bullet

There's no doubt that this was my deepest relic ever. I started hunting slowly and ... yes, another whisper. Again, another bullet, this time a Sharps.

Sharps sees light again on a beautiful day

I hunkered down and started finding more Sharps bullets including two, incredibly deep Ringtail Sharps. They came out of the ground more lead-colored grey than white. I think the depth and the clay helped prevent the typical oxidation that bullets in soil undergo.

This turned out to be an excellent spot. I went on to find many more bullets including a Washington arsenal .58 "3 ringer" and a brass ring with a small precious stone in it. This being the last few hours of DIV XXVIII, I wanted to capture some of the images for perpetuity and of course it was like ringing a dinner bell and one guy was so "hungry" he came right on over to within 20 feet of me and just about blew my ears off with quavering EMI.

It was okay. I was at Beauregard, at DIV, digging relics that had been in the ground since 1863. The sun was shining and I had just enough enough Sprite and cake to feed an army.

Finds arranged by Day. From top down: 1, 2, and 3.

Summary
DIV XXVIII was undoubtedly my favorite DIV. From start to finish in its entirety it was dream-like. Yes, I found a lot of relics and I was happy with that. I think that my detecting abilities have dramatically improved and I'm now consistently digging relics that previously I would have missed. That's a great feeling. But the best part of this DIV for me was the extraordinarily rare privilege to really experience a connection with the past. That's what drives relic hunting for me, it's why I spend umpteen hours and $ and brave poison ivy, ticks, electric fences, you-name-it, on this pursuit. There is just nothing like the mystical experience of standing outside of time, if only for a few seconds, and seeing life as it was in the 1860s for these men caught up in the immense, tragic struggle of the American Civil War.

I can't think John and Rose Kendrick enough for the incredible opportunity to attend DIV and for their stewardship of these historical sites. I'm grateful for the friendships, camaraderie and "war stories" shared with other DIV'ers and hopefully I'll get to experience more of that, not to mention Sprite, cake, and relics.

Washington Arsenal minié with star in base

Brass ring with gem (probably sapphire)

Assorted Sharps bullets from Day 3

All of the bullets from DIV XXVIII

A happy finds box

Various brass relics

Mystery buckle out of the ground

The concluding moments of DIV XXVIII

Last Two Hunts — Confederate Bonanza

2014-06-07T14:15:00.002-04:00

This is a short update with fairly poor quality photos but I wanted to post so that folks were aware that the blog was still active. I have a rather large backlog of stuff coming but the demands of work and fatherhood have put me behind.

Be that as it may, I have had a few chances to get out recently and the last two hunts have yielded some pretty exciting finds included three Confederate buttons.

North Carolina "Sunburst" Button

The first button, found a week ago, was this NC Sunburst. It was in an area that I'd hunted many times before but the field had been recently mowed. I found this with the Teknetics T2 SE in all metal search mode running at 94 sensitivity in the 2+ audio setting. Depth was pretty shallow, about 6". This is now the fourth NC Sunburst button I've found at this particular site.

An unusual item was near this button. It's a fairly ornate gilded, stamped brass object that resembles a cotton bole. In the photo below, I think it's actually oriented incorrectly. The stem should be at the bottom. I have no idea what this piece is but it was found in a section of the field where the only other relics were Civil War related.

On this same hunt, I also recovered a threaded brass partial disc. I had a suspicion that it might be artillery related and posted it to Treasurenet where "TheCannonballGuy," an expert in Civil War artillery, confirmed my hunch:

"It appears to be a brass CS-made Bormann fuze support-plug. The version you found is a very rare variation, having a "screwdriver-slot" instead of two round spanner-wrench holes for screwing it into the shell's fuzehole. That particular version was made from early-1863 onward.
Sidenote:Based on examining hundreds of US-made and CS-made Bormann-fuzed shells which have ben sawed in half, the brass underplugs are CS-made, and the iron ones are US-made. But of course, as with any rule, there always seem to be a few exceptions to the rule."

As I've mentioned before, I log the GPS coordinates of everything I find so, armed with the information about the identity of this relic, I can return to the exact spot where it was found and hopefully recover additional artillery fragments.

Finally, I found another rare button: A North Carolina State Seal.

Unfortunately, it's in rather poor condition and the back mark was illegible. Here's what one in excellent condition looks like.

One week later, I returned to the same site. But this time, I brought the GPX 4800 along thinking I would retrace my steps from the week before and see if there were any relics deeper than I could hear with my Teknetics T2.

Unfortunately, EMI from the pasture fence was so strong that I had to put the GPX in "cancel" mode just to be able to use it. Cancel mode does a great job of making the ear-splitting beeps of an electric fence go away, but it does so at the cost of depth. So I wasn't very optimistic about finding anything new. Boy, was I wrong.

My first signal was this.

CS Script "I" Infantry Button

Yep, that's a Confederate Manuscript "I" Infantry Button. It was just a few yards away from where the Sunburst was found the week before. This is a British-made button and was imported during the war, almost certainly through the port of Wilmington, just as the Block R Rifleman button I found at this site last year.

There was more. I moved to another location in the field, one that had only been cursorily surveyed in the past, and got a strong, shallow signal on the T2 —estimated depth was 5" and the VDI was high seventies, low eighties. I told myself it was almost certainly a modern cartridge casing as the farmer, I knew, had used that location to hunt from.

But to my surprise, out of the hole came a wonderful, dropped .58 caliber minié ball. I recorded the location, put it in my relic case, and ran the detector over the hole one more time before filling it in. "BEEP." Another target, high seventies! Pulling out my pinpointer, I put it in the bottom of the hole and sure enough, there was another minié.

Two miniés and where they lay for 149 years.

This was the first time I'd ever found more than one bullet in the same hole and a good reminder to "always check your hole."

Ultimately, I dug seven bullets in this very small spot. I love finding dense concentrations of relics. Not only is it fun to dig one after another in such close proximity, but it also tells you that, at that exact spot, a soldier or soldiers spent some time. In this case, that was in mid April, 1865. The next day, those soldiers and approximately 80,000 of their Northern cohorts moved in three vast wings into the city of Raleigh.

Note: All relics recovered on private property by permission of landowner. The location of all relics is precisely recorded with a handheld GPS unit.

Diggin' in Virginia 26 and 27

2014-04-15T14:51:00.005-04:00

A glorious view from DIV 27

Ten Years of DIV
Diggin' In Virginia numbers 26 and 27 were back-to-back hunts held respectively at the Spillman and Brandy Rock farms in Culpeper, VA from March 24th to the 29th. DIV 27 at Brandy Rock actually marked the tenth anniversary of Digging in Virginia which is testament to the hard work of the DIV staff and volunteers as well the vision and dedication of John and Rose Kendrick. That vision has not only stood the test of time but has been increasingly popular, with new attendees every year. Ultimately, DIV has made it possible for hundreds of people from around the country to discover and preserve tens of thousands of relics from the Civil War which would otherwise be lost to time.

The Tenth Anniversary DIV Photo by Rick Martin

When I first read about DIV five years ago, I had just moved back to North Carolina after over a decade of living and working in Silicon Valley. I was excited to be back in my native state where there was so much history and I started reading everything I could about the Civil War to see if I could locate some Civil War sites in NC. It was during the course of that research when I first read about DIV. The idea of being able to walk on the very ground where all those acts of heroism and valor occurred seemed too good to be true, to say nothing of being able to find and keep relics. Even after attending DIV for several years, I still feel giddy for having the privilege to visit and detect these incredible sites.

Before discussing DIV 26 and 27, I want to thank John and Rose Kendrick for allowing so many of us to personally experience the history of the Civil War. DIV has given me a profound appreciation for what our forebears lived through and fought for and has deeply affected my perspective not only on the Civil War, but on my own life, our government, our educational system, and the future of our country. It's also a heck of a lot of fun. So thank you, John and Rose—I hope DIV thrives for another decade!

Background
Last year, thanks to an insanely busy schedule, I was unable to attend DIV. I had located two large Civil War campsites in the Raleigh area and I didn't even have enough time to regularly detect those. So, with the prospects for attending DIV looking grim, I sold my GPX 4800 and resigned myself to only hunting my local camps.

But when DIV 26 and 27 were announced, I realized that my schedule might actually enable me to go back to Culpeper this year. There was an industry conference the week before which I had to attend but in spite of that my incredibly gracious wife encouraged me to go to DIV and volunteered to watch our young children for two weeks in a row in addition to working. So I put my name in the hat for DIV and was fortunate enough to be invited to both. My next stop was to give Don Dodson from North Georgia Detectors a call and order a new GPX 4800.

There is just nothing like Virginia when it comes to Civil War history. The farms on which DIV is held have long histories that date back to the 18th century (or older) and appear much as they did during the War. The relics that lie beneath their characteristic red clay soil span the entire duration of the war and thus the spectrum of artifacts is highly varied. You may find everything from .69 caliber minié balls from the beginning of the conflict to Type III Williams bullets from its last days. You literally never know what will emerge when you put your shovel into the ground. And that is the appeal of relic hunting in Culpeper.

As Rose is fond of saying at the customary DIV pre-hunt meeting, they can't guarantee good weather or that you'll find relics but they do guarantee that you'll have a good time and leave Culpeper with new friendships. DIV 26 and 27 certainly proved her right, once again.

DIV 26
This was the third DIV held at the Spillman farm and my second time to the site. Weather on this first day was absolutely ideal and as I strode out into the rolling hills of Spillman, I was exhilarated to be back and to see what relics remained.

A view of Spillman on day 1 of DIV 26

As on my previous hunt, I recovered some Confederate bullets including a nice dropped Gardner, a dropped Ringtail sharps, a fired sharps, and from Federal positions, some standard .58 minié balls.

Bullets from day 1 of DIV 26

Closeup of fired and dropped ringtail sharps

General vicinity in which CSA bullets were recovered

Unlike the previous hunts however, it seemed there were no obvious, dense concentrations of relics. But by hunting slowly and focusing on faint signals, it became apparent that lots of artifacts yet remained to be discovered.

Day 2 at Spillman and I awoke early in the morning to anxiously check the weather. Forecasts had predicted snow which seemed surreal given the Spring like conditions the day before. And yet the meteorologists, on this occasion, were absolutely right. Shortly after arriving at the farm, the gray skies proceeded to disgorge an absolutely stunning amount of snow which, in a matter of minutes, began to obscure the green fields under a blanket of white. Undeterred, stalwart detectorists, wearing overalls, parkas and hoods and with their expensive pulse induction machines wrapped in protective plastic, strode out into the fields. The forecast called for accumulation of 1 to 3" by afternoon at which time the snowfall was predicted to end.

Look closely, those aren't cross country skiers ...

This time however, the meteorologists got it wrong. As it turned out, it snowed nonstop from 7:10AM until 7:30PM. Total accumulation was about 5 to 6", maybe more. After doing our best in these conditions my fellow riders and I all threw in the towel at about 12:45 PM and headed back to the hotel to thaw out. Even though my feet were actually dry and warm, after digging a few holes my gloves were soaked and my hands were turning into popsicles.

Me looking amused by the lack of sensation in my hands

Finally, by evening the snow stopped. When we woke up the following day, the fields of the Spillman farm had been transformed.

In my previous blog entry about Spillman (click here to read it) I mentioned the incredible amount of relics found around an old oak tree. Seeing that ancient tree a year later as it towered alone over the snow covered fields reminded me of one of my favorite lines from Homer:

As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber burgeons with leaves again in the season of Spring returning. So one generation of men will grow while another dies.

The Ancient Oak at Spillman

Hunting in these wintry conditions was, suffice to say, difficult. With snow depths of up to 7" in places it significantly hampered the depth at which even the best detector could hear relics.

Third day conditions at Spillman. Note the dig holes.

It was on this day that I began to experience what ultimately turned out to be a personal record for equipment difficulties and "disasters." The first thing to fail was the 11" DD coil on my Minelab GPX 4800.

Shortly after I snapped the above photo, my detector began to emit periodic and extremely loud sounds. At first I wondered if it might be EMI but the sounds were completely random and, together with the deep snow, made detecting exceedingly difficult. Finally, I turned my machine off and on and the coil became totally unresponsive. Waving my shovel under it, something that would normally "blow your ears off," did nothing. Unfortunately, my other coil was back at the hotel so my detecting for the day was done. Thankfully, it was already fairly late so I didn't miss too much of the day.

That evening, I sent an email to Don Dodson who was attending DIV and told him about my coil issues. His reply came minutes later: He'd replace my coil (which was still under warranty) the very next morning. Talk about great customer support! So, thanks to Don, I was back in the saddle with my stock coil the very next morning, the first day of the hunt at Brandy Rock. I'd like to once again extend huge, huge thanks to Don for his support. And, as I've previously said here, if you're in the market for a metal detector, you owe it to yourself to call North Georgia Detectors.

DIV 27
DIV 27 saw the return to Brandy Rock, a massive property that was home to the 6th US Army Corps during the winter of 1864. Many an amazing relic had come from Brandy Rock on preceding DIVs. And, with the weather clearing, anticipation was high the morning of March 27, even if the temperatures were low.

And by low I mean 18 degrees Fahrenheit with up to 30mph winds. I know that may not sound like much to some, but growing up in southern North Carolina left me with little tolerance for temperatures south of 50 degrees. As we all lined up for the 10th anniversary DIV group photo, I was glad to be surrounded by so many bodies that provided at least some protection from the wind.

Dawn at Brandy Rock

Earlier that morning, as I was loading my gear into Vaughn's truck, the second of my gear mishaps occurred. I had put my prescription sunglasses, my preferred detecting eye ware, into my shirt pocket. I leaned against the truck to place my detector inside and heard a loud "snap." And that was that for a wonderful pair of glasses that had enabled me to see since my honeymoon over 6 years ago. I had packed a spare pair of glasses however so all was not lost. Yet ...

I had never before been to Brandy Rock. Josh and Vaughn however had, and they recommended we start at a place where they'd had good luck the last time they were there. We hiked over some very steep terrain, down one hill, up another, to our destination: An interesting location at the top of a hill.

It resembled a natural amphitheater with a small puddle at its lowest point. There was a good view of the surrounding hills from the edges of the "bowl" and its advantages as a defensible, comfortable camp were apparent.

The "Amphitheater"

Practically no one else was here. So we turned on our detectors and got to work. And at this point an interesting coincidence occurred.

I put my coil down and literally on the first sweep heard an unmistakably good signal —quite loud and definitely non-ferrous. I dug a circular plug and, deeper than expected given the strength of the signal, recovered an Indian head penny dropped by a soldier on this very spot.

The interesting coincidence was that my very first find at DIV 23 at Spillman had been an Indian Head penny. Recovering a coin is always a nice way to start the hunt.

And then the third in the ongoing saga of my equipment mishaps occurred. As I was replacing the plug in the hole I'd just dug, a lens from my backup glasses fell out of the frame and onto the ground. I picked it up and tried to snap it back into place but nothing would convince that lens to remain in the frame again. Not wanting to waste more time, and with the relatively small area suddenly congested with other detectorists, I reluctantly took off my glasses, resigned to do without distance vision (I'm woefully near-sighted).

My next find was a piece of "soldier art" —a .58 minié ball that had been flattened and then cut in half from top to base.

Flattened and bisected minié compared to normal projectile

Whenever I find one of these flattened bullets, the first thing that comes to mind is, "How did they do that, and why?" All we'll ever know is that a soldier back in 1863 turned a cartridge in his pouch into something for some particular purpose lost to time or simply out of boredom.

Eventually, the "Amphitheatre" became jam packed. The quaver of other machines made it hard to pick out the interesting signals and dig holes were everywhere. But moving slowly and carefully paid off and before departing the area I pocketed a few buttons including an Eagle I with a beautiful green patina.

General service and Eagle I buttons recovered from Brandy Rock

On Day 2, I moved to the center of the Brandy Rock property and saw, for the first time, the Wellford Plantation home, often referred to as "Farley."

The home of Dr. William Wellford, aka "Farley"

This incredible structure has witnessed so much history. Farley served as Jeb Stuart's headquarters in 1862. In June of 1863, the grounds around the house comprised part of the battlefield on which the Battle of Brandy Station was fought. Wounded and dying soldiers sought shelter within Farley.

The following year, General John Sedgwick of the Union 6th Army Corps made Farley his headquarters for almost six months.

General Sedgewick (third from right) and staff officers at Farley, March 1864

Sedgewick is famous (or infamous) for the circumstances of his death at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 9, 1864. He had moved to the front in order to personally supervise disposition of infantry troops under his command. From a distance, Confederate sharpshooters were taking shots at the soldiers who instinctively ducked and sought cover. Sedgewick scolded them, "What!? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? Why are you dodging like this? They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ..."

Before he could complete the last word, he himself was struck and killed by a minié ball which hit him just below the left eye. This occurred two months after his stay at Farley.

The entrance road to Farley

In the fields west of Farley, I found a few spots containing relics that had thus far eluded detection. My finds weren't spectacular but, after more than a year without using a pulse induction machine, I was beginning to re-learn the GPX 4800, understand its complex spectrum of audio signals, and make deeper and better recoveries.

Brandy Rock Artifacts

Always a thrilling sight

Day 3 of DIV 27, the last day, dawned and, in spite of grim weather forecasts, there was only a periodic sprinkling of rain. We considered ourselves fortunate but double checked the plastic bags protecting our machines once more.

And now we come to the final chapter in my chain of disasters. Lifting my shovel with one hand, I brought it down with force and instead of it sinking into the soft, red clay, it struck a rock. And although I've dug a lot of holes, the impact of shovel on stone was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Over the course of the next hour, it became increasingly difficult to move my wrist and, when I did, there was an awful creaking sensation in my arm like a door on a rusty hinge. I invited some friends to touch my arm while I moved it and I have to admit it was highly entertaining to see them cringe.

As I was to learn two days after DIV during a visit to Urgent Care, I had actually ruptured a tendon. The moral of the story is to not push your shovel into the ground while your arm is perpendicular to the shaft. Let your body weight or a push with your foot do the digging. Ironically, my friend Josh had given me this very advice prior to DIV.

See that hump on the top of my arm? That's not supposed to be there.

Shortly after I messed up my tendon, I broke something else: My shovel. I'd been using a long handled trenching shovel of the kind recommended by Beau "Aquachigger" Ouimette primarily to avoid having to get down on my knees on the wet ground. But the amount of water in the soil made plugs heavier than usual and the weight of wet red dirt proved too much for its fiberglass handle --without warning, it simply snapped.

One of these things is not like the others

Thankfully, Vaughn had parked the truck close by and I had my beloved Predator Tools Big Red shovel in the back. Suffice to say, I'll probably never use anything but a Predator Tools digger again. They truly are the best.

I dug a few round balls, a sword belt rivet, and a few other odds and ends before it was noon and time to attend the BBQ. We packed up our machines, got in the truck, and drove past Farley to a covered, open air structure that was perfectly suited for lunch and relic displays.

As I was standing in line, I saw Rose, said "Hello" and introduced myself. She looked at me, grabbed my arm and, pulling me out of line, said simply, "Come over here." She took me a few steps away to John Kendrick and said, "John, this is Jim Black." John gave me a look and said, "I love your blog." I was completely unprepared for that coming from John and it absolutely humbled me and absolutely made my day.

The line for BBQ

The view while we ate

Josh and Vaughn, my excellent hunting partners

Final Hours
After lunch, Vaughn, Josh, and I went to the firing range. At DIV, this is apparently termed the "walk of shame" as all you will dig on the firing range are, of course, fired bullets. But after 5 days of hunting in some pretty extreme weather, we were bushed. The idea of digging just for fun seemed appealing and indeed, it was an absolute blast (no pun intended).

The firing range was a steep hill, now covered with trees, with a beautiful, green river at its base. As we hiked through the woods and approached the range, a large buck jumped into the river and swam to the opposite bank. It was completely silent but for the sound of the rain on tree leaves.

Climbing up the slippery hill was more difficult than you might imagine, especially with a ruptured tendon. But literally every signal was a bullet from the Civil War, untouched since 1863 or 1864. I uncovered one that was flattened on one side from striking a rock. And, sure enough, in the hole was a large rock, undoubtedly the very one it had hit 150 years ago when the place I was standing was a completely different world.

Bullets from the firing range including a fired Type II Williams Bullet

Conclusion
This was not my most productive DIV by a longshot. I didn't find anything miraculous nor was the quantity of my finds up to par. But paradoxically, it was one of if not the most enjoyable DIV I've yet experienced.

Once I was back in Durham, I had to drop off one of our dogs at a kennel for the day. A few thousand yards away from the kennel, tucked away amid office parks, fast food restaurants, and the thrum of 21st century street traffic, is this.

The Bennett House in Durham, NC

This is the Bennett House or "Bennett Place" in Durham, the humble home where General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered 80,000 Confederate troops to Union General William T. Sherman. I stopped the car and got out to look at it and reflect on the past week's experiences.

The home itself has been reconstructed after being destroyed by fire in 1921 only the chimney is original. A few things struck me. First, was the absolutely vast scale of the Civil War. Here I was, 4 hours away by car from Culpeper, and yet the War had been here, too. Regiments that played a key role at the Battle of Brandy Station including the Jeff Davis and Cobb Legions had fought here, too.

The Civil War, even as it's enjoyed renewed attention during its 150th anniversary, has become something of a historical pariah, especially in the South. Perhaps that's due to the way that popular media and pundits have portrayed the war as one stemming from racism. As a result, most people are uncomfortable even talking about it.

That is a shame. It's a shame because attempts to politicize or distort the historical record ensure that we don't learn the actual lessons. Over 620,000 Americans, North and South, lost their lives during the Civil War. Countless other lives were forever diverted. And the reverberations of this conflict affect us to this day. As Shelby Foote so perfectly expressed it:

"Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement in European wars, beginning with the First World War, did what it did. But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the mid-nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads."

There is an ongoing debate between self-styled "relic hunters" and archaeologists. The latter insist that relic hunters destroy the provenance of relics and are only interested in the objects themselves, not the history, and as a result much data is lost. The former point to archaeologists as proponents of restrictive legislation that deprives amateur historians of the right to pursue their interests.

The fact is, amateur historians, relic hunters, and archaeologists are all in the minority today in that we are the ones who care about history and who want to preserve it. All three communities need to work more closely together and learn from each other to ensure that the precious, finite vestiges of our past, are preserved for future generations.

Monument to Unity at Bennett Place

Thanks
Thanks once more to the DIV staff and volunteers, and especially John and Rose. Thanks to Josh for transportation to and from Culpeper, and to Josh and Vaughn for rides to and from the hunts, for excellent companionship, and for introducing me to culinary experiences undreamed of in Culpeper. Huge appreciation to Don Dodson of North Georgia Detectors for replacing my dead coil at the speed of light. And thanks especially to my wife and family for allowing me to spend two weeks back-to-back away from home.

DIV 26 and 27 Finds Gallery
Note: These are the relics found by DIV attendees and displayed during the Saturday BBQ. These aren't my finds (I wish!).

Breathing New Life into Civil War Imagery with Color

2013-10-08T13:24:00.003-04:00

General Joseph E Johnston, CSA

The American Civil War, thanks to Matthew Brady and the advent of the wet plate process of capturing images, was the first war to be documented by the camera lens. Every student of history should be grateful for Brady's efforts, often at great peril to himself, to capture individuals and moments from that time forever.

The process of capturing an image in the 19th century was painstaking and painful. Subjects had to remain still while the exposure was captured. Plates were fragile and susceptible to damage from any number of sources of which light was probably the least concern. Imagine driving a horse drawn carriage filled full of plates of glass and jars of chemicals through rural 19th century America during a war. It's a miracle that we have many of these images at all.

Brady was a master photographer. His composition, lighting, and subject evince profound technical, and artistic talents. And yet, he was limited by the technical restrictions of the day.

Our efforts to connect with his subjects are often frustrated by one simple and yet glaring omission: Color.

For some time now on Reddit, a group of artists has sought to revivify old photos by imbuing them with color. They research every aspect of the subject and strive for utmost historical accuracy. The results are spectacular.

Click to see full size image

For example, consider the side by side comparison of the black and white image of Major General Darius N. Douch with the color image above. The addition of color brings the subject into our modern visual parlance. Suddenly, this is no longer an image in a history book, but a living person.

The above image is perhaps an even more shocking demonstration of the extent to which color brings the subject to life. The individual above, minus the shackles, could appear in any contemporary media ad campaign—think Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, etc. But in fact this is Lewis Powell, one of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. Powell's assigned part in the plot was to kill Secretary of State William Seward. He stabbed Seward numerous times in his home and left him permanently disfigured but was subsequently captured and hanged along with Mary Surratt, David Herold, and George Atzerodt.

Here are a few more of what I consider to be the most compelling works of Mads Madsen ("zuzahin" on Reddit) and Jordan Lloyd. Click on the images to view the detailed, full size versions. And see the bottom of the article for where you can follow these artists and enjoy their work. All colorized images below are copyright of Mads Madsen, Jordan Lloyd, or their respective owners.

James A. Garfield, future President of the United States, as a Brigadier General

Colonel Alex Hayes, KIA 1864 during the Wilderness Campaign

John A. Dahlgren

Major General George Armstrong Custer

Major General Joseph Anthony Mower (of "Mower's Charge" at Bentonville fame)

Major General Ambrose Burnside

View from the Capitol at Nashville, Tennessee, 1864 (color version by Sanna Dullaway)

To see more of these artists' incredible work, visit:

Colorized History Reddit Forum — Includes images from WW1, WW2, miscellaneous historical events, popular culture, etc.

American Civil War Colorized Reddit Forum —Mads Madsen's subreddit dedicated to colorized versions of Civil War imagery

Williams "Cleaner" Bullets -- The Confusion Persists

2013-10-02T12:49:00.001-04:00

It's amazing how much confusion persists to this day about Williams "Cleaner" Bullets. Here's a recent example from eBay.

This seller claims to have a "Confederate" Cleaner Bullet from Appomattox. Of course, there's no such thing. Williams "patent" bullets, Types 1, 2, and 3, were manufactured by Elijah D. Williams exclusively for Federal troops under contract with the US Arsenal. The Confederacy never had Williams bullets, although today many areas of the South are still covered with Type 3 bullets that were discarded by Union troops.

Here's my article on the blog about the history of these projectiles which continue to be a source of confusion and misinformation. Caveat emptor!

More History Succumbs to the March of the Bulldozer

2013-09-30T14:46:00.002-04:00

You're looking at a unique piece of history which, after surviving for 148 years after the Civil War, is now gone forever.

The photo above shows the original 19th century road bed approaching the city of Morrisville, North Carolina. A few weeks ago, it was exposed by construction, the surrounding slopes denuded of trees for the first time in over a century, providing an all-too-brief opportunity to see in broad, 21st century daylight, a road almost untouched since the time of the War.

In fact, this was the very road used by General Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry during their attack on Morrisville Station from April 13 -15, 1865. They followed the road pictured above, traveling from the top of the hill down the slope to the foreground of the image. From there, they would have had their first sight of Morrisville Station itself just across Crabtree Creek, its rail yards filled with cars loaded full of troop supplies and Confederate wounded.

Kilpatrick's reaction on seeing the cars was to quickly unlimber his guns and proceed to shell the station, with questionable accuracy as it turned out. Today, the chimney of the Page House in Morrisville, about 60 meters west of the tracks, still bears the scars from some of those shells.

Map showing path of original road, artillery position, and the Page House.

It didn't take long for Johnston to get his troops and supplies moving once the shells started falling and the trains pulled out of Morrisville and steamed away for Greensboro. Afterwards, the Federals made Morrisville their camp and it was while encamped there that an envoy from Johnston approached with the proposal to discuss terms of surrender which subsequently occurred at the Bennet House near Durham Station.

The Battle of Morrisville Station was the the last large scale engagement of the Civil War —literally the last in which cannon were fired. Never again were they heard after that day in Morrisville in 1865.

Look at these pictures —these roads felt the hooves and footsteps of soldiers marching into battle. They heard the crackle of musketry and trembled with the concussion of cannon fire. They saw the sun and the stars for over 150 years and, for a few days in 2013, were open once more to the bright Carolina skies. Now they are gone forever like the men who marched on and slept by them in those long ago days of summer.

Note how deep the 19th century road was. Direction of march in this image was foreground to background.

Kilpatrick's troops rode from top left to bottom right as they approached the station.

With each passing day more of the 19th century succumbs to modern development. We can attempt to preserve it with an image here or a relic there or a blog such as this. But history is ephemeral and of interest to fewer and fewer it seems in today's materialistic society.

A bullet dropped by Kilpatrick's troops as they moved on Morrisville.

Whether cognizant of history or not, it remains with us today sometimes right under our noses. That's one aspect of what makes relic hunting so interesting for me. —discovering things, sometimes standing out in plain sight, that others don't see. Most folks living in Morrisville probably never saw the old road over which Kilpatrick's forces rode en route to attacking their town.

General Judson Kilpatrick

In April 1865, Kilpatrick invaded Morrisville. Today, chances are that Judson Kilpatrick's great, great grandson invades your living room every day! He is none other than CNN's Anderson Cooper who bears more than a passing resemblance to the notorious General although to my knowledge he's never visited Morrisville.

August hunt insanity

2013-09-01T15:21:00.000-04:00

It's late August. Temperatures here in central North Carolina are in the low-to-mid 90's (Fahrenheit) with humidity levels routinely between 65-70%. Those are pretty much perfect conditions if you're an insect or dinosaur but for mammals such as myself it is pretty dang miserable.

After converging on Raleigh back in April 1865 and securing Johnston's surrender, the 90k or so invading Union troops promptly skedaddled back North to cooler climes. Those guys were smart to get out of the South before Summer kicked in. I live here so don't really have that option.

Let's face it, sometimes the detecting bug just bites you and not even Jurassic weather conditions can deter you from doing something questionable. After some pretty intensive research over the past month, combined with the arrival of a new toy, I couldn't resist getting out for a few hunts in spite of the miserable conditions.

New toy: A Minelab CTX 3030

Two of the sites I visited had been exposed by recent construction and were on the verge of disappearing forever underneath asphalt and cheap condos. I was able to hunt only a limited area on each site and managed only a few bullets from each location but was still happy to save at least a relic or two.

My third hunt was a bit more complex as it was deep in the woods. And by "deep" I mean the decision to get out there at this time of year was clearly not rational.

In addition to the aforementioned heat which makes dehydration a very real concern, there are two other seriously good reasons to stay the heck out of the woods: Ticks and poison ivy. Now those may sound like minor issues but take it from me, you do not want to get a tick-born disease (like I did last year) and you also really do not want to get poison ivy. I could post a photo of my leg 5 weeks after serious exposure to poison ivy but that would probably not be good for my page view count. Suffice to say: It's nasty stuff.

So, resolved to get out there in spite of the weather, ticks, and toxic plants, I dressed appropriately (long sleeves and pants, boots, hat, and gloves), applied a liberal coating of insect repellent, and entered the dense Carolina forest in search of a Civil War campsite.

For the next couple of hours, as terrain conditions permitted and with the assistance of my Garmin GPS, I performed a rough grid over several acres of heavily wooded land. Occasionally, I ran across some patches of iron, but the only non-ferrous targets I found were shotgun shells and modern bullets.

Now I'm no spring chicken by any means, but I'm in pretty good shape overall and usually have no problem detecting from morning to nightfall. But after a few hours of wandering the woods with the mercury showing 92 degrees, I was absolutely wrecked. My clothes were drenched with perspiration -- it literally looked like someone had turned a garden hose on me. I couldn't see very well since the lenses of my glasses were coated by spider webs that I'd walk through every 3 or so yards. Trying to wipe off the spider secretions just made things worse. So, feeling drained and somewhat defeated, I decided it was high time to make my way back to the car and call it a day.

And suddenly, "DING." A nice, crisp tone in the headphones. I looked at the CTX meter and saw a 37 CO value. That's right in the sweet spot for lead but, given the rest of the day, I was pretty sure I'd found just another modern bullet. However the depth indicator caused my heart to beat a bit faster -- 8 inches down according to the CTX. Nice, deep, and old.

Trying not to get my hopes up too much, I dug a deep plug. And right in the middle of it was this guy.

Yeah baby. Not only had I found a .58 caliber bullet from the Civil War way back in the middle of the woods, but it had been pulled. When soldiers on patrol returned to camp, they unloaded their weapon. And the only way to unload a muzzle-loading rifle (other than by firing) is to use a bullet-puller aka "worm." Just like a corkscrew, the bullet worm is screwed into the tip of a bullet which allows it to be pulled out of the barrel.

A modern day version of a muzzle-loader worm.

So this was pretty encouraging. I slowed down and hunted the area around where I found the pulled bullet and, about three feet away, I found a ubiquitous dropped Type III Williams Bullet, another sign that I'd located the camp I was looking for.

In spite of the finds and my restored morale, I was too exhausted to continue detecting. So I logged the bullets in my GPS and made my way back to the modern miracle of air conditioning in my car.

These are pretty humble finds but nevertheless I'm super excited by the discovery of a new site. Hopefully there are some more relics left in the camp. I'll definitely be visiting it again soon but think I'll let it cool down a bit more first.

Finds from the other sites

Happy hunting.

TTP

Confederate Rifleman Button

2013-04-30T12:47:00.000-04:00

Date: April 6, 2013

Machine: Teknetics T2

Site: Private property near Raleigh, NC

I was having great day metal detecting my favorite site. The weather was fantastic and I was hunting at the same time of year when the soldiers were there in 1865, imagining what the scene must have been like.

Within the first 45 minutes I'd found a few bullets and a gun tool when I decided to move on to a new area of the field that I hadn't previously detected. Immediately, I started finding bullets -- a fired Enfield, dropped Spencers, a couple of standard .58 caliber 3 ringers. The slower I went, the more I found.

Gun Tool

Soon, I started finding brass. Lots of Spencer cartridge bases, some large buckle fragments, and even more exciting, button backs. Clearly, troops were here and there was the potential for finding intact buttons.

Sure enough, before long, I got a great, deep signal on my T2. On the bottom of the plug sat a button.

It turned out to be a general service Eagle button. While cleaning it, I discovered that it retained the thread that had attached it to the uniform. This was the first time I'd recovered a relic with thread.

Soon after, and only a few feet away, I found a rivet with a piece of the original leather attached. Still black in color, it probably was part of a belt or equipment strap.

I was completely unprepared for what I found next.

I got a very strong signal on the T2 reading in the low seventies. From the meter alone, it could have been a bullet or a button, but the audio signal sounded more like brass. And sure enough, it was brass.

After digging the plug, this is what I saw.

You can faintly discern the edge of something brass in the plug. I thought it might be a button, so I decided to record it coming out of the ground with my phone. I'm glad I did, because it turned out to be something incredibly rare, a Confederate Rifleman Button.

These buttons were manufactured in Britain and had to pass through the Union blockade of Southern ports in order to make it to Confederate troops. The backmark reads "H T & B Manchester." Here's what a non-dug button looks like.

And here's how one I recovered appears after being in the ground since 1865.

This is by far the most rare button I've found and, given the history of this site, one of my favorite relics ever.

By the end of the day, I ended up with three dropped .58 calibre three ringers, two unfired Type 3 Williams bullets, two fired Enfields, five Spencer cartridge bases, three dropped Spencer bullets, a gun tool, five button backs, an Eagle button, a J-hook, a small broach with a clear stone mounted in the center, buckle fragments, and the Rifleman button. Quite a day!

The day's finds

Broach with unidentified gemstone

Diggin' In Virginia XXIII

2013-04-26T12:02:00.001-04:00

The 2013 Spring Diggin' In Virginia invitational relic hunt was held at the Spillman farm in Brandy Station, Virginia. Weather for the first two days was chilly but sunny. The second half of the third and final day of the hunt saw bitter cold and snow which sent most folks, including myself, heading for home rather than braving the harsh conditions.

This says a lot about our constitution these days compared to that of the soldiers who camped, slept, fought, and died on these same lands in the early 1860's. We take for granted such seemingly simple things as synthetic materials that block the wind and shed water whereas in those days cotton, wool, leather, and a campfire were the only protection from the mercurial Northern Virginia elements.

DIV XXIII Day 2

All DIV events are highly anticipated by attendees but this one was particularly so given the results of the last hunt on the property. Sixty plates were found at that DIV —a mind boggling number especially in this day and age when untouched campsites are all but extinct.

This farm was apparently the location of a large cavalry camp and a large oak tree standing in the field today marks the Northern extent of the camp. Around that tree at the last hunt, an individual located seven Eagle sword belt plates lined up in a row. Were they forgotten, intentionally discarded, was the number significant? We'll never know but perhaps the old oak does. And while he's not divulging any secrets of what he saw in those days several buttons were found around the ancient trunk at this DIV as well.

I always forget what it's like to hunt with 400-ish other metal detectors in close proximity so the first 45 minutes of a DIV are a bit jarring for me as I try to escape the EMI from all the other pulse-induction machines. I struck out on a path that would take me diagonally through the top quadrant of the old cavalry camp.

My first find was this Indian Head penny from 1862, dropped by a soldier not long after it was minted.

I'm not a coin enthusiast by any measure but given that this penny was carried by a Civil War soldier, I was quite happy to start out with a good coin in good condition and let's face it, it's always good to get that first find under your belt! Interestingly, this Indian Head has the distinction of being the most shallow Civil War relic I've ever dug -- it was probably no more than half an inch below the surface of the field. I kept working my way through the plug with my pinpointer and couldn't believe how close to the surface this thing was. I almost stopped looking for the target thinking it was most likely surface trash.

A few feet away from the Indian Head on the same gentle slope, I found something I'd never seen before.

At first, I was confused — a bullet with a brass ring around it—what the heck? Finally I realized what I'd found was a partial Burnside cartridge.

Intact Burnside Cartridge

This unique cartridge and the breeh-loading carbine that fired it were the pre-war invention of none other than famously hirsute Ambrose Burnside. Ironically, it was the invention of the Burnside carbine that led to his promotion and President Lincoln's giving him command of so many troops. But alas, proficiency in one skill doesn't necessarily indicate talent for others as Burnside's disastrous performance during the Battle of Fredericksburg at Marye's Heights so tragically demonstrates. Over 8,000 Union troops fell as they repeatedly attacked in vain an impregnable Confederate position. This was the first Burnside I'd ever found and, although I found one other at DIV XXIII, it had none of the brass casing left.

One of the most incredible aspects of relic hunting in Virginia as opposed to North Carolina is that you encounter a much broader variety of relics that reflect a timespan of years versus weeks. Troops occupied the Raleigh area, where I live, for only a few weeks (not counting Reconstruction), and the relative homogeneity of Union relics found here, reflects that. Not so in Virginia where troops lived and fought for four years and there's a seemingly endless variety of bullets to be found.

One of the more distinctive bullet types I found on this particular hunt was a Ringtail Sharps.

Ringtail Sharps (right) compared to standard .58 cal. musket bullet ("3-ringer")

Both Northern and Southern troops used this ammunition early in the war but eventually the Union replaced it with a different variety. I found several Ringtail Sharps bullets in an area where, as I later learned, others had found South Carolina troop buttons and a Confederate Reed artillery shell. So it's probable that these Ringtails were dropped by Southern troops.

Reinforcing that notion, a few yards from where I found the Ringtail Sharps bullets, I also found several Gardner bullets which are certainly Confederate. All of my ancestors on both sides of the family fought for the South and some were even at Brandy Station so it's always interesting for me to see one of these bullets come out of the ground. It also makes me grateful to have been born in the 1960's instead of the 1860's!

Confederate Gardner Bullet

And now I'll relate one of the more comical aspects of my DIV XXIII experience. On my very first DIV at Cole's Hill, I learned the hard way that hot Virginia soil conditions don't favor VLF metal detectors in general and the Minelab E-Trac in particular. Now, don't get me wrong, the E-Trac is an amazing metal detector and I loved mine dearly — I think it has the best audio and the best meter identification system of any machine on the market. But the E-Trac cannot be manually ground-balanced and this fact alone makes it all but useless in the Culpeper area. I learned that lesson the hard way at my first DIV when another attendee who was using a PI machine noted my lack of success and offered to let me hear a button signal that he'd just found. He'd actually already dug down to the button and, even though I could see it lying on the bottom of a 5" hole, as I passed the coil of my E-Trac directly over the button, I heard ... NOTHING. It was that utterly deflating experience that led me to invest in a pulse induction machine for my next DIV.

Fast forward to DIV XXIII and who should I encounter but this same helpful individual. We had a laugh about the E-Trac experience and talked about how we each had been doing so far that day. Even though we both were using Minelab GPX detectors, I had been fortunate enough to find a few more relics so he asked to compare the settings I was using. And lo and behold, I had configured my machine "incorrectly." Rather than using the settings that everyone else advocated and which I fully intended to use myself, I had accidentally chosen a different mode. I thanked my friend for helping me "once again" at DIV, returned the settings to the accepted mode, and we both got back to hunting. And here's the thing: I found almost nothing else the rest of the day!

Did I accidentally discover a new GPX mode? I was unmistakably more successful (we're talking orders of magnitude) with my unconventional settings. Only time and more testing will tell but I'm working on an article and hope to post it "soon" to share my results.

I'll recount one more personal anecdote from DIV XXIII and then let the relics speak for themselves. On day 2 of the hunt, I had been detecting for about 30 minutes when I started to experience the telltale signs of an incipient migraine headache. Classic migraine is something I've dealt with since I was 12 and for anyone who has experienced one, you know how completely debilitating they can be. And about the only thing worse than being nauseous and having your head feel like it's going to explode is to have a pulse induction metal detector screaming in your headphones at the same time. I hadn't had a migraine in years and tried to ignore it but I realized with a pang that if I didn't deal with the migraine I wouldn't be able to continue.

At that demoralizing moment, I saw a DIV staffer approaching on a gator utility vehicle. I waved him down and he drove over to me and I saw it was none other than the DIV organizer, John Kendrick. John looks like a Civil War officer come to life and when he speaks, you hear the Old South in his Virginia accented speech. Frankly, his demeanor is a bit intimidating but in fact he's one of the nicest gentlemen you're likely to meet. I explained to him that I needed to find CSA DOC who year after year volunteers his medical services at DIV. John asked me what was wrong and I explained in a nutshell and off he road. A few minutes later, he brought three white pills, checked with DOC to make sure there weren't any allergy issues, and proffered them to me. Thirty-five minutes later, I was back in the saddle with no migraine thanks to John Kendrick and CSA DOC who I was able to thank later in person at Buffalo Wild Wings. Incidentally, I recommend you NOT go to BWW in Culpeper on a Saturday night unless you like your Karaoke really, really loud.

Thanks again to John and Rose Kendrick for organizing and inviting me to the most exceptional, well-organized relic hunt in the world. There really is nothing else like DIV and I'm honored to be part of the DIV "family." Thanks to Dwight and Glenn for the camaraderie, transportation, and for not wanting to actually get up and sing at BWW karaoke night. Thanks to Dan Frezza for his encyclopedic knowledge of relics and for always having time to answer a question or eight. And thanks to those long departed soldiers who fought and sacrificed for their beliefs and who unknowingly left behind vestiges of their lives and the bygone days of war.

Canteen spout, McClellan saddle hardware, sword belt rivet, eagle buttons, J-Hook, gun screw bolt, etc.

Ringtail Sharps bullets

Carved bullet, likely a chess piece

A variety of different bullet types from DIV XXIII

My DIV XXIII recoveries

Third hunt of 2013 - Federal lead and brass

2013-02-01T10:45:00.002-05:00

The weather here in the Triangle area has been crazy with freezing rain followed by 73 degrees and sunshine one day later. I took advantage of the recent Spring-like conditions to revisit my newest site.

This campground has never been hunted and finds were steady throughout the day. Although the site is practically untouched since the Civil War, conditions are not the best for detecting as tall grass makes it easy to miss good targets, all of which are 8" or more deep.

In a recent blog post I wrote about the history of the Williams Bullet and how Sherman's army scorned the Type III variant. In keeping with that history, most of the bullets I recovered were discarded (un-fired) Type III Williams bullets. They're by far the most numerous find at this site. Here's how one looks in the hole.

I log all relic locations with a GPS and it's been fascinating to observe how concentrations of Type III bullets delineate the Federal camp boundaries.

Additional recoveries for the day included an Eagle "I" cuff button, knapsack rivet, dropped Spencer bullet, .44 roundball, two standard .58 caliber "three ringers," a small brass or copper ring, and a piece of brass with threading on its edges that may be part of an artillery shell fuse. I'll have to do some more research before I can say for sure.

First hunt of 2013

2013-01-14T13:31:00.001-05:00

I finally got out for the first time in 2013 to do some relic hunting. The weather here in NC was incredible -- heavy morning fog gave way to brilliant sunshine and a high of 73 degrees. Ned Stark may have been wrong about winter coming after all ...

Recoveries were from a much-hunted location but conditions and technique bore fruit. Rain the night before softened the ground which not only made for easy digging, but also probably made faint signals easier to hear. Some folks believe that moisture in the ground increases conductivity and makes for better detecting. I've never looked into the effect of water on induction but there may be something to that theory.

I got into a hot spot of Type III Williams Bullets where I'd found several on previous occasions. Two had lost their zinc washers but hadn't been fired. Two others were intact. All were found within 20 yards of the others. I think the troops that were encamped here had designated the area an official Williams bullet recycle bin.

Depth was typically about 8". Here's a photo showing a recovery with the Type III bullet in the very bottom of the plug. I love seeing them in situ like this.

Also in this area I located an unusual carved bullet. The soldier was no Michelangelo, but it's always exciting to find lead art.

There's a bit of a mystery about this bullet. At first I thought it was a carved Williams Type III, but the base is lead, not zinc. The length is also much shorter than a standard .58 three-ringer, approximately the same as for a Type III. So for now, exactly what type of bullet this was is a mystery.

Solid base of the Mystery Bullet

The other nice find of the day was a dropped Confederate Enfield bullet. Unlike the last one I found, this one has no stamp in its base. All in all, a very fun day to be out and about on a camp ground from 1865.

Coming up ...

I have a number of articles in the works ranging from book and equipment reviews, to how-to features and historical debates. Wishing you all a happy and productive 2013.

The Williams Patent Bullet

2013-01-07T16:09:00.000-05:00

It's pretty much inevitable -- if you're metal detecting a Civil War site, you're going to come across a bullet quite different from the standard .58 calibre "three-ringer." These unusual, stubby bullets with a zinc disc at the base, are commonly referred to as "Williams Cleaner bullets." That name, as it turns out, is something of a misnomer. In this article we'll take a closer look at the fascinating history of these projectiles.

Williams Type III (left) and Type II Bullets

In the early 1850's after extensive testing, the United States government adopted a new, standard small arms bullet in .58 caliber. The weapon that fired these bullets was the rifle musket —the Springfield Rifle Musket for the North and the Richmond Rifle for the South. The rifle musket was revolutionary for the time because it wasn't a smoothbore weapon as most other armies had used to date. Its rifled barrel imparted spin to the bullet which created a more stable, accurate flight.

But the fact that it was still a muzzle loading weapon created a problem. In order to load the rifle musket, a bullet needed to be of a smaller diameter than the barrel otherwise it wouldn't fit. For a .58 caliber rifle, the corresponding bullet diameter needed to be around .57".

Captain Claude Minié came up with a novel solution to this problem. His bullet design relied on an iron cup at the base of a lead bullet to expand the bullet skirt and bring it into contact with the barrel's lands and grooves. The US Ordnance considered the Minié ball but ultimately utilized a much simpler design suggested by James H. Burton, Master Armorer at Harpers Ferry. Burton's solution did away with the iron cup and instead his all-lead bullet had a simple, conical hollow at its base. Expanding gases within the rifle barrel compressed the thin lead skirt of Burton's bullet and eliminated windage.

Lt. Col. James H. Burton

Machines were constructed to mass produce what became the US Standard bullet and inventory levels were achieved that were deemed appropriate for the relatively peaceful period. But soon, the onset of the US Civil War would pose significant new challenges for US armories in their attempt to arm and equip troops.

Foremost among these challenges was accommodating the huge spectrum of firearms with which troops were being outfitted. The Armory labored under the demand for bullets in a variety of calibers and was eventually forced to not only produce ammunition for non-regulation muzzle loaders, but also often had to purchase bullets from private contractors.

In the midst of this rush to equip troops, an American named Elijah Williams invented and patented a new projectile "wad" that was cheap, eliminated windage, and was suitable for a wide variety of not only small arms but even even artillery pieces.

Williams Type I: "Wad for Ordnance" patent drawing

"What I claim as my invention, " Williams stated in the patent application, "is a wad composed of two or more concavo-convex discs of metal, provided with slits ... and combined substantially as herein specified."

The full patent # 35,273 is online and can be viewed here.

In the January, 1862 issue of Scientific American magazine, William's concept is further described:

Wad for Ordnance. — Elijah D. Williams, of Philadelphia, Pa., is the inventor of a wad composed of two or more concavo-convex disks of metal, each having a series of radial or nearly radial openings so arranged with respect to similar openings in the other or others that the metal of one covers the openings in the other, such wad being constructed of such diameter relatively to that of the bore of the gun in which it is to be used that it will pass easily through the bore in loading, but that the explosive force employed in ramming the charge home, or both of these forces will act upon it to change its concavo-convex form to a plane or a form approximating nearer to a plane, by which it will be spread laterally, and caused to fill and close the bore between the powder and the projectile, in such a manner as to prevent all escape of gases and obtain the application of the entire explosive force of the powder to the projection of the projectile, and in such a manner that in rifled arms it will be caused to receive and impart to the projectile a rotary motion.

What's especially interesting about this patent is that William's "wad" wasn't designed to clean the bore at all, but rather, to eliminate windage and increase accuracy:

In ramming the projectile home its pressure against the wad tends to flatten it, and so cause its expansion laterally toward the walls of the gun, which tends to close the bore for the prevention of windage before firing; but when the gun is fired the pressure produced on the back of the was flattens and expands it laterally still more, making it fit the bore tightly and preventing windage; and also, if the wad be large enough, and the gun rifled, forcing its edges into the grooves, and so causing it to derive a rotary motion as it moves forward, which motion it imparts by friction to the projectile.

In other words, Williams wasn't trying to develop a bullet that cleaned the rifle bore, he was trying to invent a better bullet.

Field trials conducted by the US Ordnance Department in 1861 demonstrated that the Williams bullet was in fact significantly more accurate than the standard government ball in a variety of muskets. These tests were overseen by none other than Colonel Hiram Berdan, renowned for forming the US Sharpshooter regiments but also an accomplished inventor in his own right and of course, one of the best marksmen in the 19th century world. Speaking of the tests, Berdan wrote, "The experiments were undoubtedly very carefully made and I have no hesitation in saying that the swaged grooved ball with the Williams Cap on the base is the most perfect projectile for Army use I have ever seen."

Subsequently, the US Government placed an order for three million "Williams patent bullets."

On February 12, 1862 Williams filed a second patent for "An Improvement in Elongated Bullets." This bullet was referred to then as the "Williams improved patent bullet" and today is known as the Type II Williams bullet. Its patent #37,145 can be viewed here.

Williams Type II Bullet Patent Diagram

The Type II bullet differed from the original design in that it featured a pin cast of hardened lead (an alloy of lead and antimony) with a single, smooth zinc disc instead of two notched discs, attached to the pin. Otherwise, the principle was the same as for the Type I bullet.

Type II Williams bullet without zinc disc showing hardened lead "pin"

Both the Washington and Springfield arsenals evaluated the "improved Williams bullet" and issued positive reports regarding its accuracy and, for the first time, noted its ability to keep the bore of the rifle clean. On August 26, 1862 the US Ordnance placed an order for 1 million Type II bullets from Williams.

Always working to improve his product and of course, secure more business, Williams proposed a third and final bullet design to the government. He claimed that this third design substantially decreased the weight of the Type II bullet, something Williams calculated would save the government millions of dollars in material costs/year. This "light .58 calibre bullet" came to be known as the Williams Type III projectile and was first produced in 1863. Hundreds of millions were ultimately manufactured.

Williams described the advantages of the Type III bullet as:

1st Its capability of being reduced in weight at least twenty per cent [sic] below the regulation standard ...;
2d Its very great superiority in accuracy over any other bullet used or known;
3 The adaptability of a single size to guns of a varying calibre ...;
4th Its certainty to prevent the fouling of the gun.

[Round Ball to Rimfire Part 1, page 226 citing letter from Williams to P.H. Watson, US Secretary of War]

Again, it's worth noting that the bore-cleaning properties of the bullet are the last-mentioned of the claimed advantages of the projectile's design with the key benefit being its accuracy. And this was the bullet's own inventor and salesman describing its properties.

The US Government found these claims interesting, especially that of reduced cost, and decided to conduct its own extensive tests of the Type III bullet to see if it justified increasing the number given to troops or even replacing the standard ammunition entirely.

Surprisingly, those tests failed to substantiate any of William's claims, including the bore-cleaning property of the projectile. In fact, they found that the bullet cost more to produce than the standard one and frequently broke apart in flight, destroying its accuracy. And in a final, damning letter, "the Military Division of the Mississippi ... reported the impression in that army that the Williams bullet is injurious to the grooves of rifled arms, for which reason a request has been made that no more of this ammunition be sent to the Army of the Cumberland." [(Emphasis added) Round Ball to Rimfire Part 1, page 234 citing letter from Gen. G.D. Ramsay to Secretary Stanton].

So here was a strong indictment of the Williams bullet from both the Ordnance board and Sherman's army. The communication of these findings had an almost instant effect -- the US Chief of Ordnance ordered that no more Type III cartridges be produced and that those already on hand should be used only in case of emergency.

Williams Cleaner Type III and a Type III plunger

Here in the Triangle area of North Carolina, scene to the final acts of the Civil War, the Type III Williams bullet is ubiquitous. On many occasions, I have found a single Type III bullet in an area where, after persistent searching, no other relic could be discovered. At other times, I've found dense concentrations of Williams Type III bullets and almost nothing else.

Although there apparently is no record of an official color for the Williams Type III bullet cartridge, existing specimens today employ blue or buff colored wrappers. Different colored cartridge wrappers would have made it easy for those 90,000 Union Soldiers under Sherman to quickly identify and dispose of the Williams bullets they'd been issued.

It's easy to imagine an infantry soldier, on a long march and with the end of the war imminent or already announced, peering into his laden cartridge box and ridding himself of the "cleaner" bullets which added to his already considerable load. The isolated Williams bullets I've found have most often been by the side of an old road and were probably just tossed out as the soldiers marched past. The concentrations of Williams bullets were located near streams or in camp sites and one can imagine the soldiers talking about "those damn Williams bullets" and tossing them dismissively en masse from their cartridge boxes.

An amusing aftermath to the war was a refutation by Horace Hayden, of charges that Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg used explosive or poisoned bullets.

He was responding to a passage in The Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America, by Benson J. Lossing:

Many, mostly young men, were maimed in every conceivable way, by every kind of weapon and missile, the most fiendish of which was an explosive and a poisoned bullet, represented in the engraving a little more than half the size of the originals, procured from the battlefield there by the writer. These were sent by the Confederates. Whether any were ever used by the Nationals, the writer is not informed. One was made to explode in the body of the man, and the other to leave a deadly poison in him, whether the bullet lodged in or passed through him.

Figure A represents the explosive bullet. The perpendicular stem, with a piece of thin copper hollowed, and a head over it of bullet metal, fitted a cavity in the bullet proper below it, as seen in the engraving. In the bottom of the cavity was fulminating powder. When the bullet struck, the momentum would cause the copper in the outer disc to flatten, and allow the point of the stem to strike and explode the fulminating powder, when the bullet would be rent into fragments which would lacerate the victim.

Hayden pointed out, with reference to Elijah Williams patent #37,145, that the claimed explosive bullet was in fact, a Williams Type II projectile -- not explosive, not poison, and not even Southern.

For more reading on the fascinating history of the Williams bullets, Dean S. Thomas' Round Ball to Rimfire Part 1, A History of Civil War Small Arms Ammunition, is the the undisputed authority from which I've quoted above. It's a remarkably well-researched and written book and strongly recommended.

Less-recommended due to some out of date information and errors but also great reading is Civil War Projectiles II Small Arms and Field Artillery by W. Reid McKee and M.E. Mason, Jr.

Why You Should Use a GPS to Record Your Metal Detecting Finds

2012-12-18T22:58:00.000-05:00

Provenance

Most relic hunters take pride in the fact that, by recovering relics from the ground, they are preserving the items and their history for posterity. But in most cases this actually isn't true. Each time you discover an artifact and put it in your finds bag, you destroy forever its context for future generations. Displaying relics in Riker cases on your kitchen shelf or even posting your amazing finds on a blog or Youtube for all the world to admire doesn't really do much to preserve their provenance.

Provenance simply means historical context and it's the most important quality of any artifact. For example, let's say you have two .58 caliber minie balls. All you know about one was that it was found "in Virginia." But the other bullet you know was recovered from the Gettysburg Battlefield. Which one is more valuable? Obviously, the one from Gettysburg which is of course why there are so many counterfeit relics or relics found somewhere else but passed off as Gettysburg finds.

So you have your Gettysburg bullet and you know it was found by a farmer in 1912.

As you hold this historical object in your hand and contemplate its past, don't you yearn to know more?

What if you could say with absolute certainty, for example, that the bullet was found right here:

That's The Angle at Gettysburg and the scene of Pickett's Charge. A bullet found in that location would be associated with one of the most poignant tragedies of the Civil War. Recording its precise longitude and latitude for posterity would preserve its history and make it unique from every other .58 calibre minie ball on the planet. That information is its provenance and even though you (hopefully) aren't finding bullets on Gettysburg National Park, you can still imbue each and every relic you find with its own unique provenance thereby increasing its value.

Before I go further let me clarify what I mean by "value." I'm not talking about how much money that relic is worth or what a collector would pay for it, I'm talking about historical value. Sometimes the two things are synonymous, but often they aren't. I personally am not concerned about the monetary value of something I find since I will never sell my relics. To me, their value comes from their historical significance alone. Reading the Official Records, soldier's letters, and regimental histories, finding where the events they wrote about occurred, and being able to locate a tangible remnant of that past is what I most enjoy about relic hunting--it's a way to "touch the past." And that's why I personally want to preserve as much provenance as I can about everything I find. The irony is that, for collector types and those who don't care so much about historical value, provenance also greatly increases the monetary value of artifacts. The bottom line is that, for a variety of reasons, every relic hunter today should log their finds with a handheld GPS.

GPS Technology

Today, the availability and low cost of handheld GPS units makes it possible for anyone with a metal detector to record for posterity the precise location of individual relics. Most dedicated units are accurate to less than 10 meters and newer Garmin units increase accuracy to less than three meters on average. The technology behind this capability was originally developed for military use but today GPS is ubiquitous and supported by practically all smart phones. That being the case, one obvious question is, why pay money for a dedicated GPS unit when you already have a phone?

There are two problems with using your smartphone as a positioning device. The first is that phones don't ship with map data. So unless you have a connection to the Internet (via wifi, 3G, or 4G), or buy and download maps separately, the phone can't indicate where you are. This can be an issue especially if you're hunting in rural areas. Dedicated GPS units by comparison come with map data already installed onto the device.

But even if you download map data onto your phone, it's not going to be as accurate as a dedicated GPS unit because of something called "Assisted GPS." Smartphone AGPS uses radio and wifi data in addition to or instead of satellite data derived from all 24 satellites in the GPS network. AGPS is much faster than an actual GPS coordinate calculation but it's inherently less precise and you can't turn it on or off.

Some folks at Skidmore University recently tested the accuracy of their smartphones against dedicated GPS units. Their results mirror my own personal experience that, while your smartphone is great for finding the nearest Starbucks, you cannot rely on it to accurately record relic locations. Sometimes it works, but other times thanks to AGPS, it can be significantly inaccurate. I've witnessed errors as great as 40 yards which again, wouldn't really impact your walking or driving directions downtown, but it can make a profound difference in finding your way back to the precise spot where a relic was found in the field or in establishing meaningful relationships between individual relics at a site.

For reliably and accurately logging your finds, you're going to need to invest in a dedicated GPS device.

Technique

So let's say you now have a handheld GPS unit, how do you go about using it? I'll go through the process using my Garmin Dakota 20 as an example. The basic principles will apply to any device.

First, you need to make sure your GPS is easily accessible. If you have to reach into an inner pocket or extract it from a pouch every time you use it, you're going to get tired of it and eventually you'll stop logging finds. You want to make it as easy as possible to quickly record information, fill your hole, and move on to the next target.

For that reason, I recommend wearing the device around your neck using a lanyard and tucking it into a front pocket. That way, you're not going to leave the device on the ground and forget it, it's not going to be swinging around like crazy when you're digging or detecting, and it's protected from impact with your digging tool, detector, etc. For the Garmin Dakota series, you can also buy a protective neoprene case and I recommend it as a great way to protect your investment.

So you're wearing your GPS on your lanyard and you dig a nice 3 ringer minie ball. Once you verify the target ID, pull out the GPS and, in the case of the Garmin, simply click "Mark Waypoint." That drops a virtual breadcrumb at the precise spot where you are standing.

Next, you need to give the bullet a unique identifier so you can distinguish between it and anything else you find at this site on this particular or subsequent hunts. You don't want to have to type out the full description of finds in the field since that would take too long. Here's a way to streamline the process.

I recommend you purchase a clear plastic fishing lure box such as the one below. Then, with an indelible pen or label maker, label each compartment with a number starting with 1 and increasing to the number of compartments in your box.

Now, when you find a target, simply enter it in your GPS as "3R1" for 3 ringer bullet 1 of the day, for example, and put the bullet into the compartment with the corresponding number. For other standard relics, use similar abbreviations e.g., jhk for "j-hook," gdr for "Gardner bullet," etc. The purpose of this system is to avoid having to type out everything in the field but to clearly identify every relic as it comes out of the ground.

This may sound a bit tedious as opposed to just putting everything in your pocket but this process is essential to preserving the exact provenance of every target. The payoff will come when you go home, sit down at your computer, and download the data from your device into your mapping software.

The Payoff
Once you have your desktop software up and running and connect your GPS to your computer via USB cable, you simply transfer all of your waypoints from the GPS to your computer. You'll get something like this.

A couple of things are worth pointing out from this actual plot of two hunts. First, notice the concentration of bullets and accoutrements to the North. That obviously is a line of encampment. Knowing that enables you to make future visits to this site more efficient. It also tells you where else you might want to look relative to this grouping. And it raises questions: Were there additional regiments in the area? How far apart might they have been situated? If you find and chart one of those then you have yet more information that could lead to more promising areas to detect and a better understanding of what to look for at future sites.

Now note the items associated with artillery and their distribution pattern. From this, it's possible to construct theories about the location of and possible targets for cannon in this location. That, in turn, can direct you where to search for fired artillery rounds and artifacts associated with the opposing force as well.

Another benefit of having this data on your computer is that now you can revisit a site and re-live your finds any time you want from the comfort of your own desk -- even after you've "hunted it out."

By using a handheld GPS to log your finds, not only will you preserve the provenance and increase the value of every one of your relics, but you'll also gain insights that will increase the productivity of future hunts.

Equipment Recommendations

One of the reasons I chose the Garmin unit was its excellent mapping software, Basecamp. It supports Windows PCs as well as Macintosh and both versions are pretty much equivalent in terms of functionality and user interface. If you want to check it out, you can download it for free.

To download the Windows version click here.
To download the Macintosh version click here.

Garmin also sells two products that significantly increase the functionality of Basecamp. First are their TOPO series maps that include 1:24,000 scale USGS maps. These are a bit pricey, running $130 for each region, but the detail is nice to have.

The second thing they sell is "Birdseye Imagery." This is high resolution satellite imagery available by subscription that you can overlay on top of topographic maps on both the device as well as your PC. Again, it's nice to have but by no means necessary.

Diggin' In Virginia XXII

2012-12-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

Diggin' In Virginia, as readers of this blog know, is a twice annual invitational relic-hunting event in Northern Virginia, organized by John and Rose Kendrick. I was fortunate to once again be invited to attend Diggin' In Virginia this Fall --here's a summary of the event and my finds.

Back to Beauregard
This year, DIV returned once more to the Beauregard Farm in Brandy Station, Virginia. For anyone interested in the Civil War, just being able to walk on this incredible property is a treat. The Battle of Brandy Station, the largest Cavalry engagement in the Western Hemisphere, was fought on a large portion of the farm. Fleetwood Hill, described by Clark "Bud" Hall as "the most marched upon, camped upon, fought upon, fought over piece of real estate in American History," is partially within its boundaries. And in the Winter of 1863, large portions of the Union Army, including the 6th Corps under General Meade, were encamped here. The land is all largely unchanged since that time so it's pretty much heaven for any Civil War buff.

Approximate area of DIV XXII shown in red circle

The weather during the drive to Virginia was overcast and Ihad concerns about the unpredictable and decidedly un-Southern temperatures I'd encountered on previous trips to Culpeper in late October/early November. As it turned out, the fears were unfounded and participants enjoyed three days of absolutely perfect weather.

DIV has always started with a pre-hunt meeting. It's a time to sit down and enjoy a meal with old friends, visit the displays by companies such as North South Trader, American Digger Magazine, Predator Tools, and Don Dodson's North Georgia Detectors, and then learn details of the site, rules, directions, etc. This year, I almost immediately ran into Frank and Ted, two Culpeper locals who I met during my first DIV. Shortly afterwards, I saw Dan Frezza and Beau Ouimette and I also had the pleasure of meeting another Carolina-based Civil War historian and relic-hunter, Glenn. All in all, it's fantastic to get to talk in person with a bunch of Civil War aficionados at the pre-hunt meeting.

I always have a difficult time sleeping the night before the first day of DIV. I like to spend the weeks before the hunt reading about the area where we'll be hunting in order to have a full appreciation of where I am and what I'm looking at. This year was no exception and I'd worked myself into such a feverish pitch of anticipation reading Eric Wittenberg's "Battle of Brandy Station" that I couldn't sleep. I finally gave up and got out of bed at 3:45AM and went downstairs to the lobby of the hotel. Mercifully, the hotel staff were in the act of setting up for breakfast and I was able to pour myself a nice, hot cup of coffee. This was soon afterward followed up by multiple pancakes and I was ready to go.

This machine saved my life

Day 1
Imagine 400 guys in camouflage standing in the pre-dawn light with shovels and metal detectors over their shoulders. That's the scene on the morning of the first day of DIV. John Kendrick stood up in front of everyone, gave a few last minute directions, wished us luck, and with that DIV XXII officially commenced. Some people immediately started detecting the nearest field while others jumped in their cars to hunt other locations throughout the massive (~ 3000 acres) farm.

Tony, Dwight, Glenn, and I went to a field north of the Barbour house that sloped gradually downward to what today is a lake but which, during the Civil War, was a small stream known as Flat Run. Soon, we began to find button backs, bullets, and in my case, lots and lots of camp lead. This field also contained an incredible concentration of buck and ball loads. These were in vogue during the American Revolutionary War but still saw use in the early days of the Civil War in smoothbore muskets. The buck and ball load consisted of a .69 caliber ball and two (or more) .32 cal. rounds of buckshot. Those tiny .32 cal buckshot sound incredibly good to a GPX 4800 even when they're 10" down in the hot Virginia soil and consequently I spent a great deal of my time on day one digging dozens of pieces of buckshot. Amazingly, at the bottom of this same field another person located over 180 minie balls in a single hole.

A .69 cal. roundball held for the first time since 1863

Day 2
On Day 2, we moved to a different field, one that elements of the 6th Corps had used as a camp during the winter of 1863. Here, I found a nice general service Eagle button on top of a prominent hill with a beautiful view of the surrounding terrain. I also recovered several .58 cal minie balls, a sword belt grommet, and knapsack hooks in this strategic location.

The view from Day 2

Later that afternoon, I moved down the hill onto a flat plain where about 50 people had been hunting most of the day. There were dig holes everywhere but I knew that the density of relics in the area was high and that people seldom go slowly enough to hear the deep targets. Sure enough, I got a fantastic signal right in the middle of the dig holes that turned out to be another nice Eagle button.

General service Eagle buttons from DIV XXII

Eagle button came out of this hole, surrounded by dig holes. Go slow!

This was the first of three relics that I found literally in other folk's footsteps. The two other instances were rather amusing. First, I found a spot in a cornfield where someone had kicked away corn husks in order to scrutinize a questionable signal. I passed the coil of my 4800 over the bare spot and got a very distinct bullet sound. Sure enough, I pulled a 3 ringer from about 8" down.

The last of these incidents was the best. I was again detecting in an area that had been hunted pretty thoroughly when I got an unmistakably good signal right in the middle of someone else's filled-in dig hole! I swung over the hole again and there was no question that it was a good target. So I stuck my shovel into the already-dug hole, lifted out the already loosened soil, and there in the middle of it was a pristine 3-ringer. How someone missed that one after digging the hole I have no idea but I sure appreciate the pre-dig.

In the waning hours of Day 2, I also found two pieces of a rare and unusual Shaler bullet. This was a single .58 caliber projectile comprised of 3 separate pieces. The theory was that the sections would separate in flight and cause more damage than a single round but with greater accuracy than the buck and ball load.

Shaler pieces

A complete Shaler bullet

Day 3
Day 3 dawned and Tony and I returned to the field we'd hunted on the first day. Scouring its perimeter, we picked up a few good targets including a few dropped Sharps carbine bullets.

Sharps bullets

Moving in the direction of the Barbour House, the number of signals increased and I found a J-Hook with a beautiful green patina less than 8" deep. Then, I found a massive .69 caliber minie ball. And another. Then a button back, and a .69 caliber round ball. I motioned for Tony who I've nicknamed "Turbo," and who was already 50 yards past the site, to come back and hunker down. He did and for the next couple of hours we recovered 8 or 9 of these huge bullets apiece.

Massive .69 cal minie ball next to a standard .58 cal

During the last three hours of the hunt, we moved to yet another field. This one was absolutely littered with iron signals and was obviously the site of a large encampment. Detecting here was extremely tedious however due to the sheer quantity of small iron signals. I was rather pleased when I finally dug a signal and it turned out to be bullet as opposed to yet another nail.

Can you spot the 3 ringer?

We had 40 minutes left before DIV XXII officially ended when my radio squawked and Tony excitedly told me to "get over here." Tony had dug some camp lead and noticed that it was colored by ash. He widened the hole and saw more ashes, a clear indication that he had discovered a fire pit or even a hut. He invited me to help and we both started digging as carefully as we could.

We started finding fragments of glass from a brandy bottle. Then pieces of china plate. And finally, oyster shells by the dozen, some musket parts, beef bones, and more glass. The clock was ticking and we were digging like rabid hedgehogs to see if any intact bottles remained. Finally, with the sun setting and a large hole to fill, we had to stop digging, shovel the earth back into the crater we'd created, and hike back to where Dwight, our fellow relic-hunter and driver, was waiting for us.

What Tony had just found was a spot where Union infantry, probably from Massachusetts, had feasted on beef, brandy, beer, and oysters from Chesapeake Bay during the winter of 1863. They'd even eaten off fine china. It was mind boggling luxury for such a remote area and at a time when Lee's army was fortunate to have shoes and rarely if ever enjoyed coffee. It spoke powerfully of the advantages of production and supply enjoyed by the Union Army.

As Tony and I hiked up the hill towards Barbour house, from which General Lee watched the Battle of Brandy Station unfold, I realized that the guys who ate the oysters 150 years ago whose shells we now carried in our backpacks gazed upon that exact same structure. And for a moment, I was transported back in time.

DIV XXII finds including oyster dinner from 1863. Those yanks sure knew how to wage war.

To read more about Diggin' In Virginia and see the incredible finds made by others at DIV XXII, go to MyTreasureSpot. Thanks to John and Rose and all the DIV volunteer staff for yet another amazing DIV. Thanks also to +Kellyco Detectors for providing water to all DIV attendees again this year.

The Forgotten Campgrounds

2012-12-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

In the last days of the last week of the Civil War, there was a camp on the outskirts of Raleigh used at various times by all three wings of Sherman's massive, invading army of 90,000 Federal soldiers.

This particular encampment was on high, rolling ground, overlooking a picturesque farm that featured a beautiful water source, and was bordered by key roadways that allowed easy passage to and from the newly captured city of Raleigh and Hillsboro, to the west, where Johnston's army (including Wade Hampton) had fled.

Weeks after Johnston surrendered, the troops left. Farm animals returned to pasture, grazing amidst discarded materials -- supply cases, broken down tents, dropped minie balls. Over the next several decades, trees grew and fell, and countless discarded items from those days of strife disappeared beneath leaves, straw, and mud. The veterans on both sides of the conflict passed away and before long, the camp was forgotten, its only memorial consisting of mention in the Official Records and a vague notation on period maps. Time passed ...

Today, the site where tens of thousands of soldiers lived in April 1865 is an office park. The ancient trees, silent witness to such fantastic events of the past, are gone. The rolling hills have been graded and reshaped by bulldozers, the lake drained. Driving by, you would never imagine that the bland office buildings, parking lots, and warehouses were once home to the full might of the largest military organization in the world circa 1865.

In a site so thoroughly developed, it's practically impossible to gain a visual sense of its past. However, the troops who were here did leave their mark, it's just hidden below the surface.

With landowner permission, I was able to metal detect the "Forgotten Campgrounds" several times over the summer of 2012. I approached the site with great skepticism, but gradually started finding a bullet here, a piece of camp lead there. And before long, standard .58 caliber three ringers with a thick brown patina began to emerge in quantity. I'd find them in the craziest places. One concentrated area, just a few feet from a modern road and freshly laid sidewalk, yielded over 24 bullets. This section of the site was comprised of fill dirt. It had been pushed or dumped in this location from another area of the site but it was full of Civil War bullets.

Eventually, we found a tiny patch of original land, an island from the past in the middle of all the asphalt and glass. It had some hardwood trees growing on it but was mainly covered by dense, secondary-growth pine. The ground was covered with several inches of pine straw but still visible were the plow furrows from forty years ago when the region was last farmed.

In this vestigial grove, we found bullets, camp lead, carved lead, knapsack grommets and, occasionally, something that hinted at the full martial glory of the past.

Camp lead, cleaner base, bullets, misc brass, found at the "Forgotten Campgrounds"

.58 caliber "3 ringer" bullets

Camp pencil fashioned from bullet lead

Eagle "I" Button from the "Forgotten Camp"

Everything was 9-14" deep and there were thousands of iron nails from an abundance of discarded supply crates. It was hard work just to find a good signal.

After a few weeks, I had saved what I could. I put my equipment in the back of the truck and looked out over the office park, trying to envision all of those soldiers, horses, wagons, and tents crammed into this area as far as the eye could see.

I'm grateful to have been able to rescue what I did. But who knows what the bulldozers have buried forever?

This post is gratefully dedicated to Dan Frezza for his profound knowledge, enthusiasm, and generous support.

TTP

Whew!

2012-12-03T12:54:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus away from blogging, I'm finally back! Lots of updates coming over the course of the next week or so including a summary of Digging in Virginia 22 and accounts of several hunts here in the Raleigh/Durham area.

Suffice to say, being a parent to two children under the age of three can seriously cut into your detecting time.

Research and Persistence Finally Pay Off!

2012-02-05T19:39:00.001-05:00

In March and April of 1865, some 90,000 Federal troops moved west on Raleigh following the defeat of General Joseph A. Johnston's army at Bentonville. Their objectives were to capture the North Carolina capital and destroy Johnston's Confederate forces for good. After Governor Vance's surrender of Raleigh, the Federal Army, with Kilpatrick's cavalry in the vanguard, pursued the fleeing remnants of the once mighty Army of Tennessee. Ultimately, in the wake of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Johnston negotiated surrender terms for the approximately 80,000 troops under his command at the Bennett farm near Durham's Station.

After several efforts to pin down one of several specific campsite used by this invading Federal force my friend, Tony Stevenson from Detecting Saxapahaw, and I finally located one.

The area we've focused our efforts on is very inhospitable terrain, overgrown by extremely dense scrub pine and briars. In some spots, it can take up to 10 minutes just to travel 30 yards. This was our third trip to this particular location which, over the course of our recent expeditions, has claimed a boot, an ear cuff from Tony's headphones, his digging tool, and the upper arm cuff on my E-TRAC. Thankfully, our persistence paid off and, after repeatedly coming home empty handed, scarred, and with slightly depleted blood levels, we finally discovered an area untouched since the days in 1865 when North Carolina was invaded by the largest, most well-equipped army on earth.

On this occasion, as we made our way back into the woods where we had permission to detect, a slow drizzle began to fall. We spread apart and started hunting along the banks of a river that served as a water source for the troops while encamped in the region. The density of the trees, briars, and saplings made for difficult detecting but we finally reached a site where Tony had dug some bullets and a large cent on a previous visit.

Armed with the knowledge that there had been troops in this exact location and determined not to go home empty-handed again, we started to search in earnest. Against the backdrop of rain pattering on leaves, the only other sound was threshold tone from our metal detectors and the soft bubbling of the nearby stream. And within a few minutes, at the base of a large American Beech, I got a good signal and proceeded to dig. There were so many roots, branches, and saplings in my way that it took probably 3 minutes to recover the target which, sure enough, turned out to be a .58 caliber three ringer.

At last! After researching this site for so long, I finally held in my hand proof positive that we were in the right spot. I snapped the above photo and looked around to savor the moment and study the terrain. Looking out over the damp forest with a river wending its way a short distance below, I imagined the scene as it would have been when the bullet I'd just recovered was dropped. The experience was overpowering and unlike any other relic hunt I'd enjoyed to date. Here was a spot that I had found based on my own research and here, the terrain was untouched by humanity for 150 years. It was easy to imagine the troops arrayed on this wooded slope on a warm, Carolina afternoon. Stacking rifles and laying their haversacks, ammo cases, and uniforms on the river bank, they probably bathed in its waters—a respite from the heat and welcome relief from weeks of dusty marches—bullets fell among the leaves and were lost to the world of man until this precise moment.

I called out to Tony and let him know of my find. He came over to scrutinize it and got the "I'm going to find something now" look in his eye. He went back to where he'd been detecting and I covered up the hole I just dug, picked up my gear, and resumed the search. And BANG. Another signal, 3 feet away. This one turned out to be a Williams cleaner bullet with intact base.

And now Tony calls out that he's found a Williams cleaner himself, about 20 yards away. And five minutes later, I dig another cleaner bullet. Then, in rapid succession and all within an area of 50 square feet, I dig three more three ringers for a total of 6 bullets. Tony dug the same number. So within about 45 minutes, we recovered a dozen bullets in this one, concentrated spot.

Until this hunt, I'd never recovered so many bullets in such a small area. And I'd never recovered them in situ as these were. No plow had scattered them, they lay as they fell. Another interesting aspect of this hunt was that Tony and I had been in this exact spot before! He had found a few bullets and a large cent, but we'd written it off as an isolated drop. We were mistaken and it's worth noting how important it is to not get sloppy in your detecting methods, there's no telling what you'll miss.

By the time we'd recovered a dozen bullets, it was time for us to go home. We still had to traverse the difficult terrain on the way back to the car. So we reluctantly turned off our machines and commenced the hike back toward civilization and the 21st century. But rest assured we will have more to report on this site in the near future.

Colt Revolver Trigger Guard

2012-01-22T20:31:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I visited one of the areas I'd been researching to see if I could find some Civil War relics. I ended up hunting in a spot a mile or two down the road from where we'd intended to hunt at the location of what had been an old homestead at the time of the Civil War.

One of the things that made this a particularly exciting area to search was the abundance of old glass and ceramic shards that littered the area. It was difficult to take a step without seeing broken shards or pieces of brick.

In the midst of this debitage, I got a great audio signal on my E-TRAC. Due to the amount of iron in the vicinity, I was hunting in two-tone ferrous mode and swinging really slowly. The high tone really stood out and was solid and repeatable from all directions.

A few yards away, Tony was sitting on the ground eating his lunch. I said, "Uh oh, I've got a good signal here." He got up, chewing, and watched me dig a plug. I turned it over and out popped this:

It's the solid brass trigger guard assembly of a Colt percussion revolver.

There are many varieties of Colt pistols with the two main variants being the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver in .36 caliber and the Colt Army Model 1860 in .44. Both "belt pistols" used the same frame and both were single action, black powder, cap and ball pistols.

The serial number on the trigger guard I found is readable on the leading edge of the plate behind the mounting screw as in the one pictured above.

It's probably not apparent from the photo, but the serial number is 85997. If it's from a model 1851 Navy Revolver, that would put it's manufacture in 1858. If the trigger guard is from an 1860 Army Revolver, it's year of manufacture is 1863. If I'm able to definitively identify the model, I'll post an update. Either way, it's likely that this pistol saw action in the Civil War.

One rather odd thing I noticed when researching this piece was that another dug trigger guard posted on Corinth Civil War Relics has almost the exact same deformation. Here's the guard as posted on that site ...

I'm wondering if the similarity is evidence of intentional destruction to render the weapon inoperable? If anyone has any information about this, please drop me a line or comment on the blog.

This apparently very old bottle was a surface find. The particular house we were hunting was there at least as far back as 1815 and probably for longer than that. Judging by the color, form, and extreme thickness of this bottle mouth, I'm guessing it's early 19th or late 18th century.

One more neat find at this site was an old Mercury dime. The date is 1918. It's not often you hunt a location that was occupied for a century!

: 1918 Mercury Dime

I'd like to thank the gracious landowner for allowing us to hunt on their historic property. This one deserves another visit soon so stay tuned. For an overview of the design and history of these two great cap and ball revolvers, I highly recommend this excellent video by Mike Beliveau.

: A scout carrying his "Colt Revolving Belt Pistol" in Brandy Station, VA.

Site Survey Saved by Silver

2012-01-06T20:28:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned elsewhere on the blog, I've been spending a lot of time lately doing research on some local Civil War camp sites. Last week, having identified a likely prospect on the map, I visited it in person to check it out. My friend Tony Stevenson of Detecting Saxapahaw came along for the adventure.

As it turned out, this was a day from the twilight zone. We got lost en route, several landowners weren't answering the door, and I'm pretty sure we found the headquarters of a cult. To top things off, when we were completely famished and decaffeinated, we couldn't locate so much as a vending machine. When we finally found an old country store and approached the register with arm-fulls of gatorade, pop-tarts, etc., the elderly proprietor informed us that she only accepted cash of which we had exactly none.

In any case, after walking several miles and detecting for very little of that time, we ultimately came up empty-handed at this particular location. I haven't given up on the site by any means and will update readers on progress down the road. But after a few hours of hiking and nothing but threshold tone, Tony and I decided to relocate the hunt to one of his sites where he'd previously made some good finds including a US belt plate.

My first find at this new locale for me was this nice flat button ...

I'm unable to discern what the writing says although Tony, with clearly superior detail vision than I possess, offered a translation in the field. I'll have to follow up with him and will update the blog once I have it.

[UPDATE: Tony just emailed me this awesome picture that shows what the button says. Thanks Tony!]

The second find was really a fun one. I've been hunting primarily with my GPX 4800 lately. And, as fantastic a machine as it is for finding deep relics, it's really a binary detector in that it can only tell you whether a target is iron or whether it's not. I should note that that's a limitation of all pulse induction machines and that the GPX has the absolute best iron discrimination available. But on this particular day, I was using my other Minelab detector, the E-TRAC, which is a VLF machine and which has the ability to provide much more information about the target than any PI machine currently available.

In fact, the E-TRAC provides more details on the nature of a target than any other VLF machine on the market, too. Rather than utilizing a single integer value to characterize alloys, E-TRAC provides two values—a ferrous number and a conductive number that combined are what Minelab calls Smartfind.™

Without going into too much detail, the FE value is a scale from 1 to 35 and the CO value ranges from 0-50. The beauty of this system is that, while several targets can possess identical values on one scale, the chances of their sharing both CO and FE values are low. For example, a square nail and a silver quarter both sound good and might even have the same VDI number (to use White's method of classifying targets). On an E-TRAC they will share the same CO value, but the FE value will be different, allowing the detectorist to tell the difference between valuable and trash targets.

: E-TRAC Screen showing FE and CO values for a target.

That being said, any system of classifying metallic targets is prone to some error given soil conditions, depth, and proximity of adjacent targets. But shortly after finding the flat button, I got an absolutely rock-solid 12-45 reading. To any E-TRAC owner, that number means one thing: SILVER DIME. I dug a large plug, flipped it over, and sure enough, out popped this guy.

Cool, a "Seated Liberty" dime. Flipping it over, I made out the date of 1891 which you may or may not be able to discern in the regrettably poor quality photo below.

: 1891 Seated Liberty Obverse

This find was literally the silver lining to an otherwise somewhat exasperating day. Thanks to Tony for sharing his cool site and for the camaraderie. I promise we'll locate that camp soon!

Relic Hunter by Howard Crouch

2012-01-04T20:51:00.006-05:00

Happy New Year everyone. It's been especially silent here at Silent Remnants lately primarily because I've gone into research mode, using the holidays to immerse myself in North Carolina circa 1865 and locate some promising places to detect.

Happily, I've managed to identify some interesting locations on the map and via on-site surveys and I'll update readers on the results of that groundwork soon.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share some thoughts on one of the books Santa brought me and which I've been thoroughly enjoying over the past few days —it's "Relic Hunter: The Field Account of Civil War Sites, Artifacts, and Hunting" by Howard Crouch.

This book was published in 1978 and relays, through conversational anecdotes, the incredible experiences of die hard relic hunters in Northern Virginia hunting in the 1960's and 70's. It's a fascinating read from several perspectives.

First, some of the individuals hunting in the 60's knew men who had actually spoken with Civil War veterans. Some of the campsites the relic hunters explored were mentioned by their grandfathers who retained memories of tales shared by their own grandfathers. In many cases, relic hunters could walk right into a large camp and see the outline of the huts and the crumbling chimneys, dormant since the troops last used them. It's this sense of time that makes "Relic Hunter" such a fantastic read. When we dig an artifact that's 150 years old, it can sometimes seem like an immense span of time. But it's actually only a few human generations that separate our world of iPhones, satellites, and M1A1 Abrams Tanks from the era of horses, steam, and blackpowder.

The main appeal of "Relic Hunter" is, of course, reading what it was like to be the first person to hunt a Civil War camp or even, in some cases, a battlefield, something that, for detectorists today, is unfathomable.

For example, one hunter discovers a section of the Monocacy battlefield in Maryland that was "full of everything—US box plates, hat ornaments, flat buttons, and one really pretty, big, round hat wreath. Shell fragments and pieces of fuse were all over." Other hunters describe a typical day's hunt as yielding 3 plates.

One of my favorite stories from the book concerned efforts to restore a section of the Chancellorsville battlefield in 1932. William K. Howard was riding his horse through an area he'd passed through several times before, "when [he] just happened to look down and see this saber stuck upright in the ground. It was dark and weathered down to a point where it blended right in with the trees."

Howard returned to the site with a crew and it turned out to be the shallow grave of a cavalryman, quickly interred by his fellow soldiers where he fell, the saber he'd wielded in battle had become the headstone of his grave.

The book is full of stories such as this and replete with black and white photos of box plate after incredibly rare box plate and other incredible relics.

The only downside to "Relic Hunter" (and this is a minor quibble) is the recurring theme that relics, like the world of the 1860's, have disappeared. As Crouch puts it, "The days of the easy pickings on battlefields and large winter camps are all but gone ... Good sites are hard to find...and every piece coming out of the woods is gone from the soil forever. In contrast to game hunting, the digging sport exists on a non-recurring resource and consequently must surely end one day in the not too far distant future." This is all true, but newcomers to the hobby may find Crouch's comments a tad deflating.

Only a few pages of the book are dedicated to telling the reader "how" to find places to look for relics. There is a single chapter (27) that deals with methods and it contains valuable advice.

But the main appeal of this book is to put yourselves in the shoes of relic hunters who were the first to re-enter the world of the Civil War. If you're looking for some inspiration to do more research or to get out and hunt, this book will certainly provide that in droves. Highly recommended.

Detecting Bentonville

2011-12-12T20:38:00.002-05:00

Mower's charge at the Battle of Bentonville

A couple of weeks ago, thanks to my friends Tony and John, I was able to do something I'd dreamed about since moving back to NC — relic hunt at Bentonville.

Bentonville was the last battle of the Civil War in the Old North State, the denouement of Sherman's Carolina's Campaign, and prelude to Johnston's surrender of 80,000 Confederate troops to Sherman at Bennett Place in Durham three and a half weeks later. It was a battle where an overconfident Sherman committed tactical and strategic mistakes causing him to understate Bentonville's significance in his Memoirs and characterize it as a mere skirmish, devoting only 4 pages to the battle, and leading subsequent historians to also gloss over a ferocious, historic battle fought by approximately 60,000 Union and 20,000 Confederate troops.

Sherman went so far as to downplay Johnston's own account of the battle writing, "After the first attack on Carlin's division, I doubt if the fighting was as desperate as described by him [Johnston]." This was modus operandi for Sherman. The Carolinas Campaign undoubtedly catalyzed the end of the War and was a masterful achievement of organization and logistics on Sherman's part. But throughout his career, Sherman's track record when it came to fighting against organized armies, even those as young as Johnston's at Bentonville, was less stellar than his attacks on citizenry and property. I'll cover this topic in more detail in a future blog post.

On the day we hunted, the weather was perfect and we all ended up in shirt sleeves. The land in Bentonville is flat and the soil is extremely sandy. A shovel dropped blade first into a plowed field will penetrate a good 5" into the soft ground. Surrounded by stands of cotton under a huge expanse of blue skies, we made our way into a field where, in March 1865, the left wing of the Union army had their main encampment.

The site soon began to yield treasures unseen since those three days of fighting. The first good signal I got on my e-Trac detector was a Williams Cleaner bullet. This was followed by another that retained its zinc washer.

The zinc washer at the base of a Williams Cleaner was designed to expand upon firing and it literally scraped the bore clean of black powder build up. Black powder fouling was a constant issue for combatants throughout the War. Cleaner bullets were issued to Union troops in the ratio of one cleaner to every 15 or so normal bullets. These particular bullets appear to be Williams Cleaner-pistol carbine Type III variants with a .575 diameter.

My next find was a brass cap box finial.

Finials such as this one were mounted on the base of a leather case that each soldier wore and which contained his supply of percussion caps. The finial served as part of the closing mechanism of the box flap, designed to protect the caps from water damage. Here's a photo from a non-dug box showing how it would have appeared to the soldier who used it.

My best find of the day, yet another first for me, was a brass artillery fuse.

This particular fuse was from a 3" Hotchkiss shell. Union artillery had retreated to a position near where it was found on day 3 of the battle. It's fairly remarkable that, since March 21 1865, no one had come across this rather large relic especially given the benign soil conditions of Bentonville. But it's especially gratifying to be able to discover and preserve a relic with such a specific and certain provenance as this.

Cross-section of a Hotchkiss shell showing fuse

Given the condition of this fuse, it's difficult to say whether it came from an exploded shell or whether it was dropped and subsequently damaged. The 3" Hotchkiss was the most common Union projectile, but it was a widespread practice during the War for Confederate troops to recover and use unexpended rounds from the field.

Here's the day's finds. Not too bad considering the field had been extensively hunted for years.

Special thanks to the gracious landowner who made it possible for us to discover, preserve, and share these relics—all that remain of those 3 tempestuous days in March when so many Americans died for their cause.

For excellent primary source accounts of the Battle of Bentonville, see War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Vol. 47, Parts 1 & 2.

For a recent analysis, I highly recommend Mark L. Bradley's, "Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville."

DIV XIX Finds

2011-12-11T20:45:00.000-05:00

After the DIV XIX article I got a few comments from folks wanting to see all of my DIV finds including the Eagle breastplate after it had been cleaned. So here's the result of 3 days relic hunting in Culpeper (click on images to open zoomed view in a new window).

: DIV XIX Relics

Here's a closeup of one of my favorite finds and another "first" for me —the carved bullet. It's amazing to think of a soldier playing chess with this in camp below Hansbrough ridge during the winter of 1863.

And finally, here's a photo of the Eagle Breastplate after cleaning.

Diggin' In Virgina XIX

2011-11-02T20:40:00.009-04:00

Diggin' in Virginia XIX was my third opportunity to attend one of John and Rose Kendrick's amazing DIV events. If you're unfamiliar with DIV and want to learn more about it, visit the DIV home on mytreasurespot.com.

The first DIV I was fortunate enough to attend was held at Cole's Hill in Culpeper, VA. Cole's Hill was the site of a large Union Army encampment during the winter of 1863. Many of the troops stationed there would go on to fight Lee's army at Gettysburg. But before that harrowing experience, they had to endure the challenges of surviving Northern Virginia winter.

: Cole's Hill in 1863 (note the tents and huts literally covering the hill)

They accomplished this by constructing huts and tents on the defensible high ground of Cole's Hill. Imagine being able to walk that same hill today. Now imagine being able to metal detect it and you'll begin to understand why DIV is truly an incredible experience.

This year at DIV XIX we returned once more to Cole's Hill but extensive acreage to the south including Hansbrough Ridge was added to the hunt area along with several fields that had never been open to organized detecting with pulse induction machines.

The soil in Culpeper is notorious among metal detectorists as being "hot." It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the dirt is literally iron and it presents a real challenge to VLF metal detectors, most of which can't differentiate metallic targets from the soil itself. As a result of these conditions, and in spite of decades of relic hunting, there remain amazing relics that await discovery today by those with modern metal detectors.

Typical Culpeper red dirt. Northern tip of Hansbrough Ridge in background.

This was the first DIV where I was able to use my new Minelab GPX 4800. In fact, I had less than 12 hours total on the machine prior to DIV so I was a tad concerned about how I'd fare. Even so, I was excited to have a machine that I knew was capable of significant depth even in mineralized soil and which also had an iron discriminate feature, something that my previous PI machine (a White's TDI Pro) did not.

Shortly after starting to hunt on the first day, I got what I call the "dig me now!" signal. It's an unmistakable and very loud tone that starts out low, raises to a peak as you move the coil over the target, and then drops back down to a lower pitch. There was no signal blanking meaning that the target wasn't iron. So I proceeded to dig. And dig. And dig. After several shovel fulls of Virginia's "sacred soil," I finally had the target out of the hole. It turned out to be a fairly battered Eagle uniform button. Here's the hole it came out of and where it had lain for the past 150 years.

Not a bad start and my first button find with the GPX. Not long afterwards, a gentleman approached me. It turned out to be Kevin Hoagland, Minelab's Director of Education. He asked how I was doing and if there were any questions I had about my GPX. I was really impressed that Minelab had an actual representative at DIV and Kevin is a great ambassador on behalf of the company and their products. The evening before, he gave a GPX seminar to any DIV attendee who wanted to attend. There were about 50 folks in the audience and I'm fairly certain that every one of them wanted the same thing: The golden settings for their GPX!

That's not what they got at the seminar. And I think it speaks highly of Kevin Hoagland and Minelab that they didn't just hand out photocopies of recommended soil timings for the Culpeper area. That would have been easy. Instead, for about an hour and a half, Kevin gave a Powerpoint presentation that explained soil timings and taught how to find the ideal settings for any area you might be hunting. Even though I'd read the GPX owner's manual several times and scoured forums for any tidbit of helpful information I could find, I learned several key things in Kevin's talk. They deserve their own separate blog post.

: Minelab's Kevin Hoagland explains soil timings and the GPX

And now, here was Kevin walking around DIV, finding folks with GPX detectors, and giving them hands-on tips in the field. That's really an unprecedented amount of customer support and, given the dedication of DIV attendees, a smart investment by Minelab.

The most memorable quote from Kevin's GPX presentation was, "Culpeper soil is bad, but it's not Minelab bad." I chuckled when he said it and thought it was good marketing, but it turned out to be true.

Fast forward to lunch time on the first day at DIV. Other than the Eagle button and a Confederate Gardner bullet, I hadn't found too much. I sat down on a knoll to eat a leisurely lunch while gazing out over the rolling hills of Virginia. A friend of mine, Culpeper local and longtime relic-hunter Frank, called and informed me that he could meet us at a location where they'd found some good relics at a previous DIV. So I headed to that site, turned on my machine, and started to hunt.

And immediately, I started getting a lot of good signals. In rapid succession, I dug a few Williams cleaner bullets, some button backs, and a carved button. This locale, situated below the heights of Hansbrough Ridge alongside a stream-bed, had apparently been a campsite—covered by tents, abuzz with martial activity, punctuated by the sounds of camp life, bugles, and occasionally, musket fire or the formidable but exhilarating "whoomp" of artillery. But for the hidden relics, one would never know that that world, so distant in time, had existed right where we stood. All that could be heard was the wind, the warbling hum of metal detector threshold, and the buzz of conversation. All that could be seen was rows of tilled field warming in the Virginia sun.

: Gone with the wind ...

I was starting to get the hang of the GPX and began to understand its language and tones when I got another good signal. Hoping for another bullet, I dug a 10" plug and ran the coil over it. Nothing. I held the coil over the hole and got an even louder tone with zero blanking. Whatever was still in there was deep and unmistakeably good.

Two more shovels full of dirt and I had the target out of the ground and the second I laid my eyes on it I realized that I'd just found my first plate. I picked it up, took off my glove, and held something that was last touched by a soldier in the Civil War, standing on this very spot.

: Eagle Breast Plate seconds after recovery

Curious, I placed my Predator Tools Big Red shovel into the hole. The blade on this formidable digging tool measures 13.5" indicating that the hole was about 15" deep. Not only was this the deepest relic I'd ever found, but it was also the most significant. Thanks to DIV and Minelab, I was able to touch a piece of history unseen for 150 years, save it from further deterioration, and share it with others. That's what this blog is all about — thanks for stopping by.

: Big Red shovel in the hole where the breastplate had lain for 150 years

: A handful of history