Tell me more! Can you Identify???

Try the Harold Simpson research center. They have Confederate records. I found quite a bit on my kinsmen there. They used to be called the CONFEDERATE RESEARCH CENTER but changed the name. The National Park Service has some information on line. Fold Three is good but you need to subscribe to it. A lot of libraries have public access computers and they subscribe to ancestry.com so if you have a library card you can search for free.
 
They also fire the anvil in the movie "Shane" with Alan Ladd....at the beginning of the 4th of July party....great scene...."poor people" used them to make noise for celebrating since having a cannon handy was unlikely.
 
My humble understanding is that "shooting anvils" by local blacksmith groups is one, if not the main reason, that local blacksmith clubs are now "associate" groups rather than being called "member groups" of the national blacksmithing organization, the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America (ABANA). The national organization did not want the legal liability resulting from local groups refusing to stop the hazardous practice of shooting anvils. .. That said, when local group(s) shoot an anvil at their yearly events, I quickly walk far away. I don't understand the fascination of the practice.
 
Brought back some memories. My uncle used to do this down on the river every 4th of July. I used to envy that stout cousin of mine who got to retrieve the anvil. That "stout cousin" are dead and buried. I couldn't wait to grow into a big boy like him and now that's come and gone. This was over 60 years ago and I couldn't pick up an anvil now if my life depended on it.
 
Package 4; where do you research to find this? I have multiple ancestors on my mother's side of the family who served in Confederate forces that I need to perform more research on myself.
FOLD 3 is one place to start, but you have to join.
 
Here is what I found...

On November 7, 1864 during the American Civil War, the commander of the Iowa Home Guard militia in Davis County, Iowa, having no artillery piece at his disposal, ordered a local citizen to fire an anvil (from the local blacksmith) in the county seat at Bloomfield to alert militiamen in outlying townships in response to intelligence received of the presence of Confederate bushwhackers in Davis County. This was in response to a report of two suspected Confederate guerrillas at a residence in the neighborhood where they had demanded money and food and had terrorized the occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Gore. The private citizen who carried out the order to fire the anvil was seriously injured. ---Report of Lieutenant Colonel S.A. Moore, Iowa Home Guard, January 1, 1865 in A History of Davis County Iowa, 1886, pp 556–566.

Sounds like it is correct with using 2 actual anvils, putting gunpowder in between and lighting them up. A wee bit crazy, I would think.
 
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