Broken Fragments of History

Once again I can't sleep, so once again you get a nice update here at Detecting Saxapahaw!  I still have a few more trips to blog about (including a great find back in early January - the suspense!), but today you'll be seeing my latest trip back to the Cavalry camp.  Having already discussed a lot of the bullets that we're finding at this site, I'll be focusing this post on identifying a few fragments of history recovered out in the woods.  They may not look like much, but to me, they are incredible physical reminders of those who came before us.

Dustin (R) and myself having a great day in the woods

First up are these two small, flat, brass pieces.  The bar and oval each have three attachment holes on either side.  Do they look familiar?  Regular readers may recall that I've blogged in the past about finding various parts of shoulder scales and their uniform attachments right here in Saxapahaw.  These two pieces would have been sewn on to the uniform to attach the shoulder scale using a turnkey.  The set can be reunited with the missing turnkey that I found in the same are on my last hunt!

Next, we have this small, curved piece of brass with a hole.  Just a fragment of the larger piece, it really doesn't seem like much.  But like the (slightly more easily identified) example from my last hunt, this is another neck from a cavalry spur.  The entire brass spur would have been attached to the boot heel with a leather strap, and pressed into the horses side to direct movement.  Both fragments are from different styles of roweled swan neck spurs.  The iron rowel (a spinning disc with teeth attached to the neck) on the example from the last search still remains, but this one has been lost or rusted away entirely leaving only the hole where the rowel would have been.

 

The final fragment I'll talk about here is this brass stud.  This one actually had me stumped for a while, and I wasn't entirely sure it was of the era.  The location of the find certainly helped with the identification - since everything we had been finding was cavalry related, I was able to narrow my search considerably.  Sure enough, this too is a small piece of a cavalry artifact - saddle bag stud.  The saddle bags consisted of two bags (one for either side of the horse) connected by a leather strap.  A hole in the leather strap allowed it to stay fixed to the saddle by placing it over this small stud post, which was attached to the saddle itself.  The below example is from an 1859 McClellen saddle.

 

I'll close with the rest of my finds from another very successful day at the cavalry camp.  I particularly like the hammered lead triangle and the half-melted sharps bullet.  I believe the triangle was being shaped into a fishing sinker, as I have seen quite a few examples of similar sinkers made from bullets recovered from other detectorists (namely, the illustrious Beau, aka "Aquachigger").  Of course, we will never know for sure, but I am still very fond of any relic directly shaped by a soldier in the field, regardless of the intended purpose.  The rest of the bullets include Sharps and Hankins (and bases of the brass casings), Sharps Carbine, and Colt (Dragoon and Army) pistol bullets.

Burnside and Me: Stuck in the Mud

Hi everyone!  Sorry for the long delay between posts.  I actually have been out detecting and handful of times since I last wrote, with a few more stories to to tell.  But I'm also going through some significant personal life changes at the moment, and simply haven't had time to sit down and properly tell them.  I couldn't sleep tonight, so I suppose now is as good a time as any to begin!

I will start outside of chronological order with my most recent hunt at a Yankee Cavalry camp with my friend Dustin.  We have been blessed with a somewhat unseasonably warm winter this year (which aids in my ability to get out and swing), but parts of it have gone from wet to just plain soaked.  The result?  Detecting in a thick, soupy, mess of sticky brown mud.  YUCK!  I know I've come out of the woods looking somewhat akin to Swamp Thing - pants and gloves covered with the stuff, pinpointer and shovel all but camouflaged, and boots heavy with a thick layer of stuck-on mud.  There were some targets I had difficulty recovering, as the holes were filling with water just as quick as I could remove it.

Me after a day of diggin' in the mud!

But of course, when I get done detecting on a wet Winter day, I have the luxury of heading home to a nice hot shower in a well insulated (and centrally heated) house.  Not so the soldiers who slept in the the camp I was detecting.  Those cavalrymen had no such luxury, and I don't envy the camp lifestyle.  I find it interesting the number of references to the weather in the various accounts and regimental histories I read.  Over and over again are mentions of the thick mud that comes with the heavy rains, and the hardships it created for the soldiers in the field.

Dragging Artillery Through the Mud, Huntsville Alabama.
Harper's Weekly, March 19, 1864

Perhaps the most famous (but by no means the only) instance of the weather affecting the course of the war was Burnside's infamous "Mud March".  In January of 1863, Union General Ambrose Burnside attempted a crossing of the Rappahanock River in an attempt to surprise the Confederates and regain the initiative in the war.  Torrential downpours turned the route to an impassable, muddy mess, stalling the Union army in it's tracks.  After three days, the attempt was abandoned, and Burnside was promptly replaced from command by General Joseph Hooker.

My finds for the day - a good variety of bullets

Back to my own muddy quagmire - despite the conditions on the ground, we had a very successful day recovering relics from the War.  I ended up recovering a nice variety of bullets, including Sharps Carbine, Sharps and Hankins, Smith Carbine, a Merrill Carbine, a Washington Arsenal three ring Minie (the first three ringer from this camp!), and a large number of colt pistol bullets.  The brass finds included the back end of a cavalry spur with iron rowel, two links from a curb chain, a belt or tack stud, an epaulette turnkey, and quite a few bases from brass Sharps and Hankins cartridges.  Both Dustin and I recovered coins from the camp - mine a war-date Indian Head Penny, and his an 1817 large cent.

The Indian Head penny was too corroded on the front to read a date,
but the thickness tells me it a war-date.  Brass spur point and iron rowel.

I will leave you with a couple of tips I've picked up for wet, cold weather detecting.  Both revolve around one simple concept - it's much easier to stay warm if you can stay dry.  My friend Phil taught me the first trick at the snowy Spillman Farm hunt last year - wearing a pair of latex or nitrile gloves between my regular gloves and my hands.  My regular digging gloves will eventually soak through, but the latex keeps my hands underneath dry, and thus considerably warmer.  Simple, but incredibly effective.  The next trick involves keeping my knees dry (and again, avoiding my pants from soaking through and exposing my legs to the cold).  Some folks swear by knee pads, but I find them bulky and aggravating.  Instead, I simply kneel on my digging shovel when I go down to explore a hole.  This keeps my pants knees off of the wet ground, keeping me warmer for longer.  I don't have to carry around anything special to kneel on, and no bulky knee pads.  Of course this trick won't work in manicured lawns where only a hand-digger is appropriate, but in fields or woods it works wonders to keep me going in wet winter weather.

A simple yet effective way to stay dry and warmer in wet conditions.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Equipment Review: Deteknix X-Pointer

Recently I've been hearing some buzz about a new pinpointer on the market, called the X-Pointer by Deteknix.  Being curious, I send an email over to my good friend Keith at Fort Bedford Metal Detectors for some input.  As it turns out he had just gotten some in stock, and wanted to try them out as well, so he suggested we get together and see what they were all about.  Full disclosure up front - I'm not being incentivized by Fort Bedford nor Deteknix to write this review, so you'll get the honest scoop on this product.  The hype behind the X-Pointer was rather built up on the web, so it had some pretty high expectations from the start.  Spoiler alert: the X-Pointer delivered.

I'll begin with the construction.  It strongly resembles Garrett's ProPointer, the gold standard in the handheld pointer market.  The hard plastic exterior seems robust, and should hold up well.  For accessories, it comes with a fairly standard belt holster, four "tip caps" (more on these later), and a coiled lanyard.  The lanyard seems like a great idea, but I didn't use it for this review, and I'll tell you why.  Although the keychain rings on the lanyard are metal, the snap-clip is a pretty chintzy feeling plastic.  It was the only part of the packaging that I felt appeared weak, and since I was using Keith's pinpointer, I didn't want to break it and left the lanyard at the truck.  I will probably replace it with a sturdier clip at some point.

Onwards to ease of use.  Detection occurs at the tip as well as up the shaft to about the X in the word Deteknix.  I found it quite intuitive to change between audio/vibrate modes as well as the four tiered sensitivity settings.  Although there was some decrease in detecting distance with lower sensitivity, air testing didn't show a huge difference between the various settings.  It was, however, more than adequate on all settings.  But enough air testing, lets talk about real world use.

We spent a day out detecting at two different sites, one with good non-mineralized soil, and the second that I would describe as moderate to high mineralization.  The number one catch phrase that caught my attention about the X-Pointer was - "I can't get it to false!"  And I will give that statement a qualified "true."  As far as pushing, twisting, scraping the pinpointer in the hole, I absolutely could NOT get it to false.  Not a chirp.  Remember those tip caps I told you about?  At first I thought they were a neat but unnecessary add on.  After using it for a day, I can see why they were included.  Since it doesn't false from pressure, you really can use the pinpointer to scratch around in the dirt with pretty good force.  That's probably what most impressed me from the X-Pointer, and I really feel it's what makes this unit a step above the competition.

Now I did say that "I can't get it to false" was true to a certain point, and here's the limitation.  The X-Pointer is fairly unique in that it's a pulse induction pinpointer, and that would lend one to believe that it would be unaffected by ground mineralization.  I didn't find that to be the case.  While the unit worked great in the neutral field on full sensitivity, the hot-ground field would still cause some falsing on just clay.  The falsing was worst when more of the shaft was in contact with the dirt, rather than just the tip.  I tried the "ground balancing" technique that I use with my Garrett ProPointer, and the result was the same - the falsing went away, but took with it much of the depth and sensitivity.  Unlike the ProPointer, however, the X-Pointer offers another solution.  I simply turned the sensitivity level down from four (max) to two in the hot-ground field, and voila!  No more falsing.  The depth decreased a little from the maximum setting, but not nearly the same extent as when ground balanced.  So again, one more point in the X-Pointer's column.

Alright now lets get down to brass tacks.  Retail price?  $89.00.  Compare that to the $130-ish for the Garret, and even more for the Minelab.  Wow.  Enough said.

To recap - Doesn't false from pressure for extreme use.  Adjustable sensitivity for hot ground.  Easy to use.  Depth comparable to the others on the market.  And a better price.  The ONLY question mark remaining is the longevity, and that we'll have to wait to see.  So for now, I'm sold on the X-Pointer.  It would make a great addition to any detectorists arsenal, and my first recommendation for new hobbyists.  Well done, Deteknix, and thank you for a great product that I look forward to using as my primary handheld unit for years to come.  If you're so inclined, head on over to Fort Bedford and pick up one for yourself.

Published in American Digger Magazine - Hot Tips for Hot Dirt

Hey everyone!

As you may know, I have been a regular attendee at the bi-annual Diggin' in Virginia events for the past several years.  The red clay of Culpeper, Virginia is highly mineralized, and can make detecting significantly more challenging.  Pulse induction technology metal detectors have help significantly with the mineralization problem, and are the predominant machines at such hunts.  Unfortunately they also have some pretty hefty price tags compared to a traditional VLF machine like my trusty White's DFX.

While I am by no means an expert, I do feel that I have been rather successful at hot-ground relic hunting with a VLF detector, thanks in large part to a few simple tricks I picked up along the way.  I shared those techniques with American Digger Magazine, and the article was just released in the September-October issue (Volume 10, Issue 5).  If you are interested in checking it out, you can order a subscription over at http://www.americandigger.com, or download a digital copy here.

I actually haven't gotten my copy in the mail yet, but I expect to arrive any day.  If any of my readers have gotten their copy yet, drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you thought!  Oh, and speaking of Diggin in Virginia.... I got my invite, so I'll have another DIV recap coming in late October.  WOOHOO!

"Spencer" update - Rare Sharps and Hankins cartridges

I just stopped in to post a quick update and correction on last weekend's relic hunt post.  I posted pictures of my finds on several internet forums popular with Civil War detectorists and received some interesting feedback.  While I did notice something seemed a bit differs about the Spencer bullets and casings I found than what I have recovered in the past, I assumed they were simply a Spencer variant.  The oxidation of the bullet from close proximity to the casing and gunpowder confused the ID as well.

It turns out that what I thought were relatively common Spencer carbine bullets are actually much more rare Sharps and Hankins cartridges.  This can be seen most clearly on the second bullet from the left in the previous post, and a larger picture of that bullet is shown here.  These bullets were designed for the Sharps and Hankins carbine, a product of a short wartime partnership between the two weapons manufacturers..  About 8,000 S&H rifles were made, with more than 6,600 of these produced for the Navy and the remainder (about 1500 units) for the Army and Cavalry.  This may seem like a large number, but for comparison, there were more than 100,000 Spencer carbines and rifles produced for the war, and 700,000 Springfield rifles.

Rim-fire cartridges recovered from the wreckage of the USS Monitor. 
USS Monitor Center Blog

Interestingly, several parts of a Sharps and Hankins rifle and four S&H type rim-fire cartridges were recovered from the wreckage of the famous USS Monitor.  These cartridges are shown above, and more details can be found at the USS Monitor Center's blog here and here.  The Monitor Center's blog also shows a cloth patch on the inside of the cartridge, between the bullet and the powder charge.  It is speculated that the fabric was intended to help keep the powder dry in case the cartridge was subjected to wet conditions.  Further cleaning of my recently dug S&H cartridges does show remains of similar cloth fragments inside the cartridge!

The preserved fabric barrier between the bullet and powder chamber in one of my
S&H cartridges (L) and a cartridge recovered from the USS Monitor (R).

Bullets, Brass, and BEES

Hey everyone!  I got off for not one - but TWO days in a row, so naturally I grabbed the detector and was out the door as quickly as possible!!

Saturday I went back to the little camp I've been searching, but instead of returning to the same field, I decided to branch out to neighboring fields to see if the camp area extended out any further.  Unfortunately I was detecting in a veritable sea of shredded aluminum cans, the bane of most every detectorist.  I was only able to detect for a few hours, and the aluminum was driving me crazy, but I did manage one solitary keeper.  This three ring Minie ball bullet has a star inside the base cavity, identifying it as a product of the Washington DC arsenal (now Fort McNair).

Today I met up with my friend Dustin to look for a new camp.  As we pulled into the drive to ask permission to detect, a bearded gentleman emerged from the workshop behind the house.  Explaining that we were looking to search the nearby field for a Civil War camp he told us that we had missed the mark.  The camp wasn't in the field we suspected, but in the woods behind it, which he also owned and was happy to let us search.  He also cautioned that we might not find much, explaining that it had been heavily hunted in the past and the grown up vegetation might scare us off.

Like two dauntless warriors, Dustin and I geared up and headed back into the woods.  Sure enough, the area was quite overgrown, and completely undetectable in many places.  So we did the best we could, hoping to eek out some finds in the "hunted out" camp.  Overall we did quite well in the several hours we were there, and I look forward to returning in the winter once the undergrowth has frozen and died back.

I found a total of eight bullets, including four broken Spencer cartridges, three 44 caliber pistol bullets, and my very first Smith carbine.  Unfortunately the gunpowder filled cartridges and lead bullets tend to corrode one another, and they are quite rare to find intact after 150 years underground.  I only found one other piece of brass, a slightly mangled turnkey from a shoulder scale.  I have previously found another turnkey right here in Saxapahaw, and more information about it can be found in that post.  Dustin got the only button for the day, a beat up general service eagle, as well as a saddle fitting from a McClellan saddle.

We will certainly make a return trip, as I know there is at least one more relic to be found.  I was digging up a good sounding target (I KNOW it had to be a bullet, at the very least) when the ground opened up with a deluge of bees!  I had dug right into their nest, and luckily high-tailed it out of there with only one sting.  MAN did that hurt!  Between that, the multitude of ticks I found upon returning home, the briars, and the sunburn, it's a wonder I still want to go out at all...

But I can't wait to go back!  Until next time, be safe out there everyone!

Finally got my coil to the soil again!

Hey everyone!  Well, my schedule's been pretty tight this year, and I've been working like a dog. No offense to dogs. BUT I did finally managed to get away last weekend and do some real digging for the first time since DIV.  Even better still, I managed to find a few Civil War relics to show for it.  The artifacts were all quite shallow in a gently sloping pasture, but EMI from nearby electrical lines still made it a bit of a challenge.

The bullets are all standard three ring Minie balls.  The lead glob shows just enough of the rings to know it had been a bullet as well, before it melted.  The large brass object is a bayonet scabbard tip.  I have found both the tube and finial portions of a scabbard tip in the past, but this was my first time finding them both still attached. 

The smaller button is just a back, the front having been previously destroyed.  Miraculously though, it still has some thread on the shank.  this is only the second period button I have found with thread intact, the first being a Virginia coat button found right here in Saxapahaw.

The large, highly gilded button is a civilian "flower button" featuring a grape and leaves motif.  The button backmark is "Benedict and Burnham Extra."  Aaron Benedict and Gordon Burnham manufactured buttons with this mark from 1834 to 1849, before the company was reorganized as the Waterbury Button Company, which still exists to the present day.  Benedict and Burnham buttons are well known to collectors as having excellent gold gilding, and many dug examples retain a significant amount of gold.  Although not a military button and designed exclusively for civilian clothing, similar buttons (and even this exact style) are often found in and around Civil War campsites.  It is very likely, given the lack of other period household items, that this button was soldier-worn.  Of course, we will never know for certain, as the nearby road predates the War by many decades.