Lead plate....CW or no?

[TrpnBils]

So I was MDing at a school this afternoon where I've dug CW mustket balls before, what I believe to be a large cent (measurements are exact, but no details at all), and today I dug a CW era button there (see the buttons subforum...trying to ID it but I think it might be civilian since I can't find anything like it online). One other interesting find was 8" down. It's a piece of lead, maybe 3/8" thick, about 5" long and 3" wide. Would there have been any reason for soldiers to carry something like this with them? Seems unlikely, but with the depth and the amount of CW lead I've found right there it makes me wonder.

This particular site is just uphill from a creek that Jackson's troops were known to have followed.

 

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[ekeisler]

Pics?

 

[kuger]

Most CW soldiers didnt have to(Some Confed's may have)but a whole lot of life happened before and after the C.W.,a huge part of life was hunting,and bullets for hunting were hand cast from bar lead which sounds like what you found........lead was also used as solder for water pipes etc early 20 the Cent,which also came in Bar lead form

 

[TrpnBils]

Yeah I wondered about casting bullets in the field. Like I said, it's literally right up the hill from one of Stonewall's camps so the area makes sense to have something like this, if in fact that's what it's from. The school was built in the early 90's and the earliest map I can find for that particular area (which is not old at all, I understand that...) is 1989 when it was an open field. There may have been other buildings there in the past, but if there weren't I'd be surprised if it was from something industrial.

 

[TrpnBils]

Here it.... Real heavy and real soft lead. It is folded over behind though and is about 2" longer than it appears here

 

[kuger]

not bar lead so to speak.....but sure as heck could have been used for any of the above mentioned

 

[rovnrbl53]

Interesting find...hard to say what that is or used for...you might look closely at both sides to see if you see any letters/numbers/symbols carved into it.

 

[TrpnBils]

Interesting find...hard to say what that is or used for...you might look closely at both sides to see if you see any letters/numbers/symbols carved into it.

haha yeah, I looked a little but didn't see anything. I can tell you for sure though that I carved the heck out of it with my hand trowel and screwdriver because I thought it was a rock at the bottom of the hole and was less than patient after 15 mins of digging in rock hard soil (it rang up as a quarter at about 3" if I remember right so I thought I was maybe off to the side of the target...detector is new and I'm still learning its pinpointing sweet spot)