Getting Ready For Relic Hunting Season

Tom Hughes

Sergeant Major
Joined
May 27, 2019
Location
Mississippi
d1.jpg

Just a few more weeks it will be time to get back to searching for this stuff. While anticipating the hunts, I took time to lay out some artifacts from past hunts and wanted to display them to you...my audience. Thanks for looking.

d2.jpg

You never know if you'll find anything at all...but when you do, you're living the dream!
 
I'm chomping at the bit as I had a nice young man contact me thru CWT about some items his Dad eyeballed in a field and I met up with him a few weeks agon and low and behold he had CS cast I's and enfields not to mention a few yankee buttons and 3 ringers. I knew there was another big camp here as the CS army fell back here after the Sherman's Meridian trip, plus the yankees were here for awhile after the war so I told him I would help him out.
 
Dug a couple times this summer (Rev War sites) but after continually getting stung by wasps, I gave up till it gets colder. The wasps (yellow-jackets) have been brutal this year.
Good for you for at least getting out....I did make it to a few spots during the summer but the heat here in central Mississippi can be brutal. I'm pushing 60 years old and I can't take it like I used to.....Did you find anything good?
 
I'm chomping at the bit as I had a nice young man contact me thru CWT about some items his Dad eyeballed in a field and I met up with him a few weeks agon and low and behold he had CS cast I's and enfields not to mention a few yankee buttons and 3 ringers. I knew there was another big camp here as the CS army fell back here after the Sherman's Meridian trip, plus the yankees were here for awhile after the war so I told him I would help him out.
Maybe you can get a machine on that camp.....
 
Its already a given as I meet him at the museum and showed him all the stuff from the parole camp then took him out for a tour of those camps. Then we went over to where the stuff his dad found and of course its in cotton. He wants me to come out with machines.
 
Tom I love the amber inkwell. Haven’t seen one for a while.
Richard - you’re one lucky son of a gun
I have three new prospects to check out this winter. 1) a friend just purchased 26 acres adjoining the Appomattox BF. It has a old house site with the stone chimneys still standing. 2) got permission to hunt where the Union II corps bivouacked on there way back to Washington after the war ended. It also has a house site; 3) still trying to get permission to hunt the 9 VA cavalry 62-63 winter camp. And last but not least I am coming your way in April with my machine 😂 lol…. Really!
 
Richard - you’re one lucky son of a gun
NO, I'm pure of heart.:unsure: As I have told you before you are always welcome to come down and bring your machines. I only have one rule, you can't use batteries in your detector.:D
 
NO, I'm pure of heart.:unsure: As I have told you before you are always welcome to come down and bring your machines. I only have one rule, you can't use batteries in your detector.:D
Richard- that’s Great! I ‘ll contact Al Gore to see if he’s got a wind or solar powered back pack. 😎
If he doesn’t, I plan to concentrate around friends property near Shiloh and central MS. Want to swing over your way to say hey to Laura & Jody on the way home if time permits.
 
I'm chomping at the bit as I had a nice young man contact me thru CWT about some items his Dad eyeballed in a field and I met up with him a few weeks agon and low and behold he had CS cast I's and enfields not to mention a few yankee buttons and 3 ringers. I knew there was another big camp here as the CS army fell back here after the Sherman's Meridian trip, plus the yankees were here for awhile after the war so I told him I would help him out.
What a generous person you are to be willing to help him out.
 
Good for you for at least getting out....I did make it to a few spots during the summer but the heat here in central Mississippi can be brutal. I'm pushing 60 years old and I can't take it like I used to.....Did you find anything good?
Mostly just musket balls this summer. I have hunted those camps for many years and pulled out some great buttons (a couple of which are in Don Troiani’s book on Revolutionary War buttons). Like most old spots the finds get fewer and farther between. Development around here has wiped out many places I hunted back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s so I don’t have many local spots left anymore. Used to dig CW in Va all the time but work and family commitments prevent me from getting down there much anymore :frown:. Best of luck to you on your upcoming digs !!!!
 
I wish you all good hunting and digging this season. I am amazed that you guys can still find places that haven't been hunted that are good prospects.
Believe me, it takes a lot of research and a lot of walking, and a lot of walking and a lot of walking and a great deal of luck. At times I think it’s easier to find a unicorn
1634408124871.png
 
Believe me, it takes a lot of research and a lot of walking, and a lot of walking and a lot of walking and a great deal of luck. At times I think it’s easier to find a unicorn View attachment 418602
You are welcome anytime. Here is a photo I took of some of the stuff that was eyeballed in the field.
demop buttons.jpeg

I am amazed that you guys can still find places that haven't been hunted that are good prospects.
There are still a lot of places to hunt and as @Woods-walker research and walking but I have found with all the interweb tools we have now days, that the more research you do the less walking there is.
 
You are welcome anytime. Here is a photo I took of some of the stuff that was eyeballed in the field.
View attachment 418612

There are still a lot of places to hunt and as @Woods-walker research and walking but I have found with all the interweb tools we have now days, that the more research you do the less walking there is.
I am envious! Good luck out there.
 
There's still some places. Just takes a lot of patience and making contacts and relationships with land owners.
Your are spot on with the landowners. Back in the early days it wasn't that big a deal but now days its a WHOLE different story with landowners.
 
Yes siree! The days of pulling over the road side and going in the woods are a distance memory.
I remember when I was stationed at APG back in the 80's, I was headed back to Alabama on leave and I saw 3 guys get out a car on the side of the interstate with machines and go over the guardrail and the car drove off. I made a note of the mile marker and went back a few months later and it was a goldmine.
 
Like I said - you’re one lucky son of a gun.

A great deal of the property along I 95 in VA was and is still good hunting. Especially around the US Marine corps base at Quantico. But it’s now off limits to relic hunting. When it was legal, we did exactly how you described. Someone would drive and pull over several of us would grab machines and go over the guard rail and the driver would return at a pre determined time to pick us up.
When I was about 17 yo in 1963 ( yes I am a dinosaur) I 95 was beginning to come through VA when my brother and I found a virgin camp that was going to go under concrete. We practically lived in the camp and found many prized items. We never cleaned it out but we tried. Near the end we took every relic hunter we could gather in there and nice items were still coming up.
One memorable item I found - and have never found another was a tin type. It was a photo of a lady in a flower garden. Before we could get home the image faded until it was just a thin piece of tin. But I will never forget it and often wondered who she was and where she was from
 
Back
Top