Rules on Ordnance

[samgrant]

Saturday, Mar 29, 2008 - 12:08 AM


By JAMIE C. RUFF
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER



The Civil War ended more than 140 years ago, but there is still ordnance to be unearthed, said Bob Wilcox an amateur historian from Powhatan County.

And the thought, he said, is chilling, especially in light of the February explosion that killed Sam White, who ran a business in which he cleaned and disarmed Civil War-era military ordnance at his Chesterfield County home.

The explosion scattered Civil War shell shrapnel throughout the neighborhood.

The incident prompted Wilcox to encouraged Powhatan officials to develop some type of regulation that would address the handling of such items when they are discovered.

Supervisors asked him to research the issue, and Wilcox said he would at least like people to report when they discover such devices "just so [authorities] know where it is; what's being done with it."

In the last days of the Civil War, fleeing Confederates tried to lighten their loads by throwing weaponry from their wagons as they passed through Powhatan, and it is possible there is still some ordnance buried in fields waiting to be uncovered, he said.

Wilcox said he remembers one day in 1975 when he stopped at a country store in the Amelia County community of Chula. He met a man in the store who had already started prying open a Civil War explosive he had found. Wilcox left as fast as he could.

"The public as a whole just does not realize how dangerous that stuff can be," Wilcox said.

Relic hunting persists in Virginia.

In the 1960s and 1970s, relic hunters heavily scavenged Petersburg National Battlefield, and it is unlikely there is much ordnance left to be discovered there, said Jimmy Blankenship, curator of the battlefield museum. "There probably are some, but as far as hundreds and hundreds, I don't think that's the case," he said.

Several years ago, two relic hunters were sent to prison and fined after being caught in the battlefield, Blankenship said.

By now, much of the buried Civil War ordnance in the Richmond metro area has been discovered, but "it would be reasonable to presume" that some relic hunters still have some of that ordnance, said Robert Krick, historian with the Richmond National Battlefield Park.

"I don't think anybody has done an inventory," Krick said.

On Thursday, a 44-pound, 8-inch Civil War mortar shell was found in the Petersburg battlefield park by workers surveying in preparation for the tour road to be rerouted.

The Petersburg park recently adopted regulations calling for the state police bomb squad to be called to dispose of such devices. If they are not available, the next option is the U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit from Fort Belvoir, Blankenship said.

There is little reason to preserve this type of ordnance, he said, because "none of these Civil War artifacts are rare."

Most people who discover ordnance know where to take it to be disarmed, though now fewer people are interested in handling the devices, Blankenship said.

If anyone finds unexploded relics of this type, they should call the bomb squad, Blankenship said. "They are dangerous. They are meant to kill."

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