bergie
Bronze Member
- Aug 2, 2004
- 1,815
- 1,147
Amazing day yesterday as much or more for the new friendship and history as the detecting finds. I had researched a relatively major Civil War battle and drove several hours to the site, hoping to find permission near the (protected) site. I get there and it's marked either state or private property as far as the eye can see and as always I see how close I can get while still being on the right side of the law. I found an area along the main road where trees were torn out and earth overturned - looked like to widen the road. There were no posted signs, but my concern was that was only because the trees they could have been on were removed and the signs not put up again. Well I nervously started detecting with the idea I could say that I looked carefully for signs and didn't see any and I was directly along the road out in the open, not looking to conceal what I was doing. I found a three ringer right away and was pretty fired up about it. At the same time, I kept my eye on the side road next to battle field because I had been to the end of the road and there was a gate and I saw on satellite view there were homes back there - so along comes a vehicle I wave it down and driving is what looks to be a Confederate solider - full beard, hat looks like a soldier...and CSA belt buckle when he gets out of the van. So I ask if this is ok to be here and he said it's probably fine, that his family owned this entire area including battle field land, since 1820 and they sold the battle site to the state years ago and still own 2000 acres next to it. Oh, and he's a detectorist!! His dad was as well...he's telling me detector dreamlike stories about all he has found over the decades - can't even imagine it sounds like a museum of finds. Friendly guy, so I ask after a while, could I pay you something to detect some of your land? He says, no worries, you don't have to pay me and he says let me show you some of my finds. He said we have detected so much of it but he says as you know there's no way we found everything. So we go back to his land, crack open a beer and he shows me (some are pictured here). We detected about an hour and while I didn't find anything amazing there, it was such a huge piece of property I will have to go back. He gave me an open invitation - but I did find in addition to the three ringer - this item by the main road that he thinks could be the end of a ramrod for a rifle. It's about 3/4" across the flat top and the split in the top doesn't look like part of the design, rather it's cracked open. It is cone shaped. I would appreciate your ideas on this item. One of his relatives was in the battle there, and the main thing is all these years a Yankee (me) and the kin of a Confederate solider met on the battle field, sparked a friendship and had a good day (and a beer! - actually, we had a second beer too). Note in powder flask photo you can see more straight on image of box gun on shelf in background. It's same gun as I have in the closer gun photo. You can also see cannon ball fragments on shelf in background and another really nice whole powder flask.
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Music to my ears!! Keep us posted on any future visits 
