War and Roses

Happy Easter everyone! 

My brother was down visiting from New Hampshire over the weekend, and while he does some detecting up there, he's never had the chance to do any Civil War detecting. I took him out with my friend Dustin to a little spot nearby for a few hours. I let my brother use the GPX, which he rather enjoyed, I think. I was using the Deus for a while to sneak around in the one trashier area. I found plenty of nonferrous targets mixed in, but not much in the way of civil war relics - a rivet, and the base to a period brass casing. Dustin smoked us both with his GPX, a half dozen bullets, and some miscellaneous small brass.

The highlight of the day, though, was watching my brother recover his very first Civil War bullet! He was the first person to touch that since it was dropped 150 years ago. The smile on his face was priceless. When it was fresh from the dirt, I thought it was a Sharps and Hankins, which are known in that camp. The lead on those degrades for some reason, and I thought that was the case with this one.

As it turns out, we cleaned it up later to see that his first bullet is even more special - it's soldier carved. I think it was a Sharps to begin with. You can be the judge, but to me it looks like it was being carved into a rose bud. An interesting image for a soldier at war in the cold of winter. 

I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to share this hobby we both love with my brother, especially on such a beautiful day. And he even found a really great relic, too.  It couldn't get any better than that!