Hunted out Area Yields More Finds

By Roger Whirley (aka raw-war-digger)

Having previously planned a hunt in Corinth, MS with a friend, I got ready, stopped and picked up another digger at his house and off to Corinth we went. We stopped at several places wasting most of the morning with nothing to show between us all so we decided to call it a day.

On the return trip home, I took a side road and stopped at a bridge (another digger had told me of this place and I had hunted it two or three times and hadn't found one Civil War relic). He told me that I had been hunting the wrong side of the road and it had been hunted out years ago! I ask if he wanted to try it again as we had nothing to show from our previous efforts and had a couple hours of sunlight left. His detector was messed up so I let him use my spare (adjusted to the best of my ability) and we started to hunt.

About 15 minutes into the hunt he ask me to come check his signal. I went to his hole (about 30 feet away) and told him it was one of those uncertain signals but it was certainly Iron. Walking back to where I had just came from, I crossed a large deep signal. I dug my usual 12" diameter plug at 8" deep and the signal was still in the hole and much louder. I dug out another 8" of dirt and checked again. This guy was asking what is it? Had his head in my hole looking and thought he was going to take over my find! The target was still in the ground and I dug deeper and struck the item!

When the shovel glanced off I saw the Sabot and I said: "It's A Shell"!

He disagreed right off but told me not to hit it again so I went in with my hands around 22" deep and pulled it out! My exact words were, "If it's not a Shell, I'll kiss your Butt"! He finally agreed and kept saying "I Can't Believe You Dug That Shell Out Here"!

I laid it in the back of the truck and we both looked at his previous hole. He returned to it and I went back to swinging. He finally called me back over as he wasn't used to my machine and couldn't find his target. He had just missed it as it lay off to the side of his hole! I reached in with my shovel and exposed his find, a 16 oz Iron Beer Can with the Aluminum top and bottom fully intact!

We continued to hunt and just before leaving I found a (unknown to me) button with some recent damage from the disc. It was nicely gilded but had a crease to the face.

After getting home I cautiously started cleaning the shell and finally found out it to be a bolt (solid without a fuse or powder charge inside). Turns out to be a Hotchkiss Bolt (DG# 126 or MP# 125) 3" diameter x 7 1/4" long. Two solid cast parts interlocking with a lead Sabot holding the Iron parts together.

I showed the button to Rafael at Shiloh Relics and he told me it was a CS Manuscript "E"(CS152 in Albert's) . I returned to the field and found about 1/3 of the back which had the "HALFMANN TAYLOR/MONTGOMERY" dm back mark.

Keep Swinging and You'll Keep Finding!