alan polk
1st Lieutenant
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2012
Deer season ends and the relic hunting begins.
Shuffled around in the mud and muck, swamps and brush, but lucked into this 12-pounder case-shot today while searching for an artillery impact zone. I had read about this supposed artillery affair in half-buried, obscure records. A lot of forgotten skirmish sites in the Vicksburg campaign, that’s for sure.
The Official Records, diaries, and other primary accounts work to give up hints and signs of landscapes long ago changed or overlooked by modernity. Old roads disappear, towns go extinct, so that the actual locations described by the soldiers can only be grasped by best laid theories overlaid onto a modern world.
It always turns out to be in the middle of nowhere. So it is nice when a mere theory manifests itself into actual artifacts from the event once told. The discovery made an otherwise cold and dreary day worth it.
I’ve got her soaking in water until I can find someone to drill it. It looks like the Bormann fuse was punched at the 5 second mark. So my guess is that it bounced a ways and I’m still a fair distance from the actual impact zone. Hope to get back there soon, but it appears I’m on the right track. Time will tell.
Shuffled around in the mud and muck, swamps and brush, but lucked into this 12-pounder case-shot today while searching for an artillery impact zone. I had read about this supposed artillery affair in half-buried, obscure records. A lot of forgotten skirmish sites in the Vicksburg campaign, that’s for sure.
The Official Records, diaries, and other primary accounts work to give up hints and signs of landscapes long ago changed or overlooked by modernity. Old roads disappear, towns go extinct, so that the actual locations described by the soldiers can only be grasped by best laid theories overlaid onto a modern world.
It always turns out to be in the middle of nowhere. So it is nice when a mere theory manifests itself into actual artifacts from the event once told. The discovery made an otherwise cold and dreary day worth it.
I’ve got her soaking in water until I can find someone to drill it. It looks like the Bormann fuse was punched at the 5 second mark. So my guess is that it bounced a ways and I’m still a fair distance from the actual impact zone. Hope to get back there soon, but it appears I’m on the right track. Time will tell.