What I have been told is a RARE TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEER BIT BOSS!

[Wes-N-VA]

Okay, it has been awhile since I have posted other than these recent post. This relic has me excited because it was found to be a RARE relic. This one will be making American Digger! Butch was very excited about this Bit Boss and he even forwarded my information to a Mr. Charles Harris who replied back to me explaining the limited information on this hard to find relic from the Civil War. To say the least, I am very happy to have this fine piece in my collection of Civil War relics. What makes it even better, I found 46 sharp carbine bullets and a Eagle I Button with it. What a great day metal detecting! Please visit my YouTube page (Wes-N-VA) to see this amazing Civil War Relic Hunt. Between three of us about 100 bullets were found!

https://www.facebook.com/MidAtlanticRelicAndCoinHunters?ref=hl

 

[CRUSADER]

Wes, I would think that these bit boss's would be a little more common. From Charlie Harris' comment about these engineers covering a lot of ground and so many of them it just seems strange that we don't see Topographic Engineer accoutrement pretty often or ever. I know that Charlie knows his stuff. Did he elaborate on how much Topo. Engineer stuff that he has seen over the years? I'm curious. I'll definitely have my eye open for it in the future.
Best of luck to Ya!

Thinking out loud,

If they were mapping remote places & not just future battle sites then the random losses are likely to be in the middle of no-where. ie. unlikely hunting spots, just a thought.

 

[StormSurge]

Yeah Cru in theory, if they were mapping remote places, that makes sence. The problem with that is what was the middle of nowhere 150 yrs ago, around here, is the middle of somewhere now. Very remote places easily have become farm fields and often have become parking lots, shopping centers and neighborhoods making remote places accessible.

I by no means am an expert on this subject but according to my research and Charlie Harris' description Topographical Engineers were pretty much everywhere from 1818 to 1863 at which time the department was abolished and transferred to the Corp of engineers. During the time that it existed as the U.S. Topographical Engineers it did not exclusively function for the government. It contracted for the private and public sector also thus putting it just about anywhere and everywhere and in turn would have seemingly left traces of its existence more commonly found. I'm hard pressed to find these traces and in my amature opinion conclude that this Topographical Engineer Bit Boss at the very least is not common and I believe it to be rare.

Also there seems to be variations of the Corp shield and I wonder if this may be an earlier one. If I am correct, changing of the design over the 45 yrs. of the Corps existence could make this bit boss and its design even more unique. But for now that is just an assumption.