I want to contribute to saving our Battlefields but....

CC68

CC68

Established Users
...articles like the one i posted earlier make me hesitant to do so. Ill repost the link as no one seems to have read it, or have an opinion.

http://www.nps.gov/shil/Documents/ARPAweb.pdf

I hate seeing blood stained ground turned into apartment complexes, but i also hate seeing people making relic hunters seem devilish.

Personally, i relic hunt because of my interest in the war and my interest in wanting to make a connection to that place in time where my relatives lived, fought and died. I'm not into it for money. I have no interest in selling anything, and get more pleasure knowing i have a piece of history than i could ever get from selling it. This isn't to disparage collectors, traders and people who sell relics with good intentions, but i do despise people who rape the land of objects strictly for monetary gain,and who have zero interest in the objects they collect and sell.

I crave the knowledge of why the Enfield i just found has a funny looking nose, and why some TN farm boy, 142 years ago, might have disfigured the bullet so. Was it stuck in the barrel? Did it mis-fire? Was it done in the heat of battle or in camp... All i know, is that the place i found that odd bullet is going to be covered by s strip mall in a year or two and i feel obligated to recover whatever artifacts i can from that area. Call me a rapist. I dint care. Id rather rape history that way than entomb it forever under asphalt.

I'm ranting... anyway, so when i read good article like this...

http://www.nps.gov/rich/rich18.pdf

I want to help, but then i think of the D.C. pin head who wrote the 1st article and I'm hesitant. Well, I'm hesitent to send ANY more money to Washington, but oh well.

Sorry to rant... but maybe this place needs it.
 
I would send some money to non profit organizations like the Civil War Preservation Trust. But the government does like to tell land owners what they can and can't do lately. I, like you, are all for saving some of what can be saved. Which at this point is not much. 8 years ago we were losing an acre an hour of historic battlefields. I have not heard newer figures but I would bet that that rate has accelerated. There are archaeologists out there that do recognize the importance of amateur relic hunters and do know that themselves will never be able to dig it all anyway. NO FUNDING. We as relic hunters also have some responsibility to make a record of what we find. Many might be in it only for the "loot", but I have run across few like that. If a relic hunter is taking the time to research, to go out into the field, to find the relics then he/she should take the time to keep a log of finds. Anyway, some of the negative propaganda against us diggers is frustrating. My two cents, for what they are worth.
Travis
 
As i am new to this, i have not yet started a log book of finds. Now that i have found more then 3 bullets, and several other items of interest, I am wanting to start a log of findings and some way of preserving them. I don't want to display items as a centerpiece in my home, but would like some way of keeping them safe, with records, and easily displayable... i just haven't come to a a solution yet.
 
I hate to be a pessimist-but I see NO INTEREST in ANY government(local,state,Federal)in currently protecting Civil War sites.
It's "PC" not to preserve,alongside big money developers.
I speak from the hindsite of 50 years(I'm 62 and have always had an interest in the period)
Good example;about 30 years ago the Atlanta Cyclorama painting,showing the Battle of Atlanta,was in danger of collapse.
The very heavy canvas painting was literally ripping apart from lack of upkeep.
Even though gate-receipts from visitors viewing the painting was over 3 million dollars per year,on average,the (black)Atlanta city council did'nt put one cent toward maintanance of this world famous painting.
I was living in South Carolina,at the time,and heard about the rapid deteoriation of the painting from concerned members of various Sons of Confederate Veterans camps.
Since the Cyclorama painting highlights the capture of the yankee DeGress artillery battery,by Manigault's South Carolina and Alabama troops-it was not hard to get donations earmarked for painting repairs,etc. in South Carolina.We sent several thousands of dollars toward this effort.Others sent massive donations too.We got alot of publicity in media to "save the Cyclorama"(it was very obvious that the Atlanta city officials would have been very happy for this painting to have rotted!)
My point being;the Cyclorama WAS SAVED by massive efforts OUTSIDE Atlanta!That's a fact...
So the painting was saved-but that was'nt the end of it.
Next;the city "leaders"had the Confederate flag blotted out of the central portion of the painting!
The Confederate Battle Flag was transformed from a waving red banner to a nondescript white sheet(if you see the painting todayyou will notice it easily enough)
This,unfortunately,has gone unchallenged to this date.
To my knowledge nobody in Georgia has taken issue about it,although some sort of response would probably been successful in this blatant
historical prejudice....
Another example;developers a few years ago bulldozed a large tract which saw some of the bloodiest fighting in the Atlanta Campaign,near Dallas,Georgia;ground on which the Kentucky Brigade,C.S.A. bled itself white attacking yankee entrenchments.
Not a peep out of anyone...
Today houses sit atop this not-so-sacred battlesite.
Georgia seems hell bent on "forgetting" its Civil War heritage.
And I hear it is not much better in other states.
Future generations will curse the ignorance and prejudice so common these past 30 years...
 
Keeping record

Just a quick reply about keep records or log book on finds. I've been relic hunting for quite a few years and find it just as interesting to map and log all my finds. Contained in the log books are by the year, day, weather conditons, area, and type of artifacts found. Also I have hand drawn maps, I've inked out of the property with the relics indicated on the map. Its great after years of steady hunting certain areas, that you see things come together like a puzzle. The properties I detect on are all legal land, but the relics that are being found show civil war activity, that are not found in any historical account. So I feel I'm filling in the blanks, in a small way. So much of of our hunting grounds are now under black top driveways and yards.
 
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