parsonwalker
Bronze Member
This is two hunts after cleaning. Took a buddy along who found a shinkel (sp?) ground-burst and a lot more shell fragments than me. One long, all-day hunt, and one 4 hour hunt. We were working the Confederate lines and so all the bullets but one are Federal. A handful of 3-ringers (One Washington Arsenal star-based), three Carbine bullets and one Gardner. Shell Frags are identifiable: Hodgkiss, Shinkel, and 24# Round, and 12# round. The cleaning-jag/worm was sitting about 4" deep, right on top of a CSA trench. The percussion caps were the coolest story though.
About 50' in front of the main CSA line, there are individual rifle pits. They look barely big enough to hold two men each, like picket posts or something. Just little horshoe shaped berms around a hole in the ground. Out in front of one, I got a reading and dug a percussion cap JUST in front of the berm. Then another, and another, until I had 17. I was thinking "cap-box spill" until I realized they were all FIRED. I can just see this old boy sitting in his rifle pit, like Gary Cooper in Sgt York, taking one carefully aimed shot at a time, and flicking his used caps off in front of his gun barrel. That's what I love about CW relic hunting. Every find has a story to tell. You guys ever wonder how many of your frags or fired bullets passed through some poor soul before they came to rest where you found them?
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