Treasurehound, research conducted in recent years has shown that each of the two types of "rare Confederate bullets" you found were produced by a state arsenal for use by that state's troops. The Wilkinson pattern was made by North Carolina, in .50 and .54 caliber for use in its "North Carolina rifles." They are found almost entirely at NC and VA sites. Your teat-base 3-groove Minie was made at the Augusta GA Arsenal, in .54, .577/.58, and .69-caliber, and were issued to Georgia troops. They are found almost entirely at VA sites. All of those were early-war bullets, and are very rarely found at 1863-or-later battlesites. That last fact prompts me to ask, since you live in Tennessee, did you dug those Minies in TN, and if so, where? What year does the battlesite or campsite date to?
