Revolutionary War encampment questions

[Scottdavid]

I've read about a Continental troop encampment set up along a creek. Encampment layout was also highly regimented in precisely spaced rows, with kitchen and supplies in the rear - the "Waggons", lt. and lt. colonels in the center, captains in front of them, and non-commissioned officers and infantry all the way up front. Would part of the practical purpose of setting up along a creek be for cleaning their supplies, bathing, drinking? Or is that just a coincidence of stopping at a comfortable or strategic location.

When searching a suspected encampment area, would you spend most of your time along the creek edge or further in? For those of you who are Rev War buffs, were Continental encampments (let's say a troop count of about 10,000) in reality pretty spread out vs. tightly bunched?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Agony and Death on a Gold Rush Steamer: The Disastrous Sinking of the Side-Wheeler Yankee Blade - Grab it through Amazon!

[smokeythecat]

There are a lot of variables. Short encampment? Long encampment? Size of the units involved, etc. They would set a little "off" the creek due to flooding possibilities but the creek would have been the water source.

Your best bet is to do a zig zag pattern through the area and mark any and all targets. All metal may be the way to go. My bud and I found a lookout post for a Rev War camp two years ago. Must not have been many people there. They apparently had a lookout set up on a little knoll. We got about 4 dropped musket balls, one marked numbered button, a 1 reale silver and a Spanish Maravedis coin...and nothing else.

Hope you don't have a trash infested site.

 

[Scottdavid]

Thanks - this is very helpful. That’s a nice set of finds!

 

[smokeythecat]

We also found about 5 pounds of shredded aluminum cans! The good stuff was hiding with the aluminum.

 

[Scottdavid]

What was the aluminum registering at vs. the finds? I get aluminum cans as 70s and the number tempts me not to dig - but then the possibility it’s masking - ugh

 

[smokeythecat]

Aluminum on my Deus can go from 36 to about 88. Gold and a lot of other stuff hides in that huge range. Most big cans are in the 80's. I can tell them at this point all the time. The pull tabs, IF NOT BENT or misformed, are in the mid 70's. Sometimes ketchup packets show up, also in the mid 70's. I'm using 74khz on my machine. I can pretty much tell an intact pull tab because the machine is so sensitive one side of the tab registers-then the other side also registers, depending on the angle of approach. A lot of the light weight foils are in the mid 40's. I can ID them 99% of the time. The two things I can't tell off the top are pieces of thicker aluminum someone has folded into a square and balls (tight balls) of aluminum foil. Now, I dig all of them. BECAUSE the gold coin I just got sounded like one of the folded over pieces. Another bigger gold coin read 92! If you are looking for relics, its best to dig it all. Seriously. And don't skip bigger iron. I even dig all nails on some well known Rev war sites (private property of course.) Some of the iron is worth more than silver or gold! And those lovely Civil War buttons mainly ring up in the mid 60's. So...every single piece of gold I've even found...I was not expecting gold. Three of my Civil War buckles I dug I thought were whole aluminum cans. I can now "hear" the difference in the richness of the tone, at least on the Deus. Dig it all. And don't "think" too much to dig or not to dig. Oh rats! Now I've given my secrets away!

 

[Scottdavid]

Thanks for those tips. I’ve started ignoring 30s and 40s. And 70s make me very suspicious. But I will dig the 50 and higher— never getting too excited now about 80s until I see what it is. Don’t worry I’ll keep these search secrets to myself - lol

 

[CASPER-2]

Im gonna PM you a site that may have your site on it and may be helpful

 

[Scottdavid]

Thank you

 

[DCMatt]

Would part of the practical purpose of setting up along a creek be for cleaning their supplies, bathing, drinking? Or is that just a coincidence of stopping at a comfortable or strategic location.

Any military camp prior to the 20th C needed 3 things - a road, water for men and animals, and wood for fires.

My understanding of CW camps is that they were typically a little ways off the road and picket posts were place near the road. If the enemy was spotted on the road, pickets would fire and pull back into camp to fall into the ranks and create a battle front.

If they had the luxury of tents, they would be set up corner to corner forming a "street" with the officers at one end.

A soldier from the 96th wrote home to the Pottsville Miners’ Journal and described the camp’s location as “about 2½ miles from the city of Alexandria , and about the same distance from the Long Bridge, near the line of the Louden and Hampshire Railway, where it crosses Four Mile run, which is about three hundred and fifty yards below us.” The camp was laid out like a small town, with streets between rows of tents separating the different companies.

 

[Scottdavid]

Wow - really interesting and great pictures