New Site and Dont Understand

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Hello all, I got out today to a site that I gained permission to today with 2 other buddies. They were Civilman1 and Matt. I am very depressed about this site. My research says that this is General Lees retreat from Antietam to Virginia. The site where we were at has a CW marker noting this route. We turned up NOTHING. I dont understand other than Lees men were $hittin and gitten and had no time to leave anything behind. The frustrating thing is I KNOW they came through there but I can only surmise that they perhaps "passed" through a little off of what the history states.After we split from there Me and Civilman hit a site on the way home of his. We were discouraged at this point. I saw him at the truck "ready to go home". I was swinging hard and fast toward the truck. This was a cornfield recently harvested and I saw a ground hog hole. I sped over there thinkin lemme check here then I ll go. First swing there rang solid 50-55 I dug and recovered a nice dropped Three ringer right in the dirt that he had kicked out. It was only about 1-2 inches. Then we left. All I can say is Im soo disappointed.

 

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Two things were probably working against you. First, the historical markers do not mark the actual spots, but rather the closest highway, or even a highway that is in the "general area" of the site. Sometimes the sites are several miles away.

Second, if there is a historical marker there, the area would've been obvious as a spot to hit for any detectorist in the area since the 60s. Even if it were on the right spot, there might not be much left to find. And if it wasn't in the exact spot, but rather only close, previous detectorists may well have researched and found the actual retreat route, because the historical marker reminded them to research it each and every time they drove by.

I may have missed some Big sites by looking for sites that nobody knows about, but I can tell you this...since I started doing that, over 99% of the spots I hunted since 2007 had never been touched by a detector--including Civil War sites. I figure there is the likelihood that others think the same way, and that some big virgin sites are avoided because they are too obvious. But I also think about the time I would've spent cleaning up someone else's scraps, and it just wasn't worth it.

Some food for thought.

We all strike out from time to time. Don't worry about it. Just keep moving forward.

Best Wishes,

Buckles

Thanx Buckle Boy, What you say holds alot of weight with me. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve and have not given up on this site yet. Stay tuned cause there will be more on this story good or bad I dunno yet but we will see.