Relic Hunting Persistence And Bittersweet Recoveries

[Chase Goldman]

A few weeks back forum member and friend abenson posted the results of an amazing hunt he had in Virginia at the latest week long "Diggin' in Virginia" organized group relic hunt.  DIV is the gold standard of group hunts, a well organized, well oiled machine that enables folks regardless of equipment, skill, or experience to have access to sites in and around Culpeper, Virginia known to have Civil War activity through battle or long-term winter encampment.  The CW history around Culpeper is immense.  Several major engagements were fought within a 50 mile radius of the town including the Battle of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Battle of the Wilderness, and the battles of Cedar Mountain and the Battle of Brandy Station (the largest Cavalry engagement of the Civil War), the latter two being fought on Culpeper County land, and many other major and minor skirmishes.  In addition, Culpeper was a popular site for winter encampments for both Armies.  The result is simply a high density of CW related relics remaining in the ground on the various, numerous private farm properties in the area.  DIV contracts with landowners to give the DIV participants access to the land to search for these coveted relics.  The main catch is that relic hunting has been going on for multiple decades and although advances in technology and technique have enabled relic hunters to get access to deeply buried relics, those relics are disappearing and not being replenished.  Those "surface finds" are actually pretty deep on average and the to complicate matters further, the soil is extremely mineralized due to the local geology which also happens to be home to some fairly significant natural gold deposits.  Finally, several organized hunts and individual relic detectorists have repeatedly pounded the major "hot spot" sites.  That doesn't mean the sites are devoid of relics but it does mean a little bit of research, detective work, and luck go a long way to getting you into an area of high relic concentration.

Anyway, this DIV was number "50".  No, it hasn't been held for 50 years, there have been 50+ organized DIV events held since around 2004.  This event featured 4 separate sites that participants could visit as they pleased over a period of 5 days.

If you read Andy's post that I linked above, you can see that he had a pretty good hunt, he had a plan, stuck to it, focused on one specific area, and was rewarded, indeed, with the find of a lifetime, a CS tongue.  Part of a two-piece Confederate buckle (see pic below).

This is my DIV 50 story.  

We started at a "new site" that was not hunted by DIV previously.  As you might imagine, it was highly popular on day 1.  Me and my two buds hit the site for awhile came up with a few bullets and not much else and then decided to hit another site where we previously had some luck.  There too, the finds were few and far between but we were not skunked.  We decided to hit a different site on day 2 where we had also had some previous luck with very little success.  Lead is great but we were really craving brass.

We visited a fourth site on day 3.  This site was a site we previously had sworn off based on previous poor luck and you can now see how desperate our crew was becoming.  We found a couple more CW bullets there and then proceeded to go back to a different section of the site we visited on Day 2.  On the way there we noticed that a field that had been previously occupied with a fresh crop of soybeans had just been harvested that day.  As far as that DIV is concerned, that would be considered virgin hunting ground and we were going to be one of the first crews exploiting it.

We hit the field spread out and started surveying it for possible hot spots.  I found a couple of tiny brass percussion caps and some non-descript brass, but it was starting to look like another wild goose chase.  I hit another strong signal, that sounded good in the GPX headphones, nice high tone that did not break and started digging.  As I remove more and more dirt and rechecked the hole the signal remained loud and clear and unbreaking (I was using a moderate iron reject setting).  Finally, I located the target but to my dismay it was in the side wall of the hole.  Not a good sign.  That typically happens with ferrous targets because they tend to pinpoint off-center.  I pursued it anyway and a beautiful green, brass something fell out of the sidewall and into the bottom of the hole.  It was a heavy brass object that resembled a section of wreath.  I knew what I just dug and I was simultaneously filled with feelings of joy and disappointment.

 

I too had recovered part of a two piece tongue and wreath Confederate Army buckle.  Andy had recovered his "find of a lifetime" CS tongue.  I recovered part of the wreath that encircles the tongue when the two-piece buckle is fastened together.  But unfortunately, under circumstances unknown (perhaps under the plow, perhaps in battle) it was only a broken off partial section of the Wreath and not fully intact.  Hey a partial wreath is better than no wreath, and believe me I opened up that hole and also super searched the entire vicinity for an intact tongue or any other matching fragments to the partial wreath, but was unsuccessful.  Similar feelings occur when you recover military two-piece button backs with the faces missing.  On one hand you know what you got and you are happy to have recovered some brass, but he feeling is bittersweet knowing what might have been if the button (buckle) was recovered intact.  That day and the next day I recovered five button backs.  Ha.  But the good news is that I also recovered 5 intact Eagle buttons including an Eagle "I" coat button that still had some gilt.  A pretty good DIV haul for me and the rest of the crew as that field contained a number of brass button, minie ball, and brass relic hot spots.

We also dodged the tractor a few times and it even forced me to abandon a sweet signal as it "ran over" my target.  I let the tractor pass, reacquired the target and pulled a nice Eagle button.

Anyway enjoy the pics of my finds from DIV 50.  I managed to recover a relic from each site, just missed a spectacular find, and kidded Andy by saying that I found the part of the wreath for his CS Tongue that he was unable to recover....

 

[F350Platinum]

Spectacular stuff from DIV! 👍 Someday I might be able to do one of those, but without a PI it would probably be difficult at best.

Great job and as always persistence pays off. 🙂

[JCR]

Very nice group of finds. Just think of the desperate circumstances that left them behind so long ago. That's real life history you recovered. I would love to hunt a place like that.

[abenson]

It was good seeing Hugh, you definitely found more buttons than I did. Glad you wrote up this great report. Brought back memories of DIV 50 even though it was just a short time ago.

[Valens Legacy]

Thanks for the story and pictures of this wonderful hunt.

I thank you for recovering the lost history from the ground as I know it takes a lot of work to cover that much ground.

Nice finds for a great person, good luck on your next hunt.

[GB_Amateur]

Excellent chronicle and photos, Hugh.  I particularly liked your delineation of the different days and detecting history of the various sub-sites you hunted.  Those are enlightening to me as I also try to figure out the detecting history of sites I hunt.

[CPT_GhostLight]

Looks like an awesome haul to me. Well done! I've heard stories of the famous/infamous Culpeper area hunts. That's on my bucket list after I get and learn a PI detector that will see into the center of the Earth. 😄

[strick]

Nice write up..I was right there the whole time..sounds like a challenging place to hunt..if there’s that many bullets then there’s got to be some nice relics left. I got my first mini ball couple months ago and they are huge. 

Strick 

[NCtoad]

Wow!  Nice pics, nice finds and great storyline.   Thank you for taking us along a hunt most of us will only dream of! 

[Fredneck]

Great post ! You guys had a nice hunt, especially considering that was our 7th dig on that farm, 6 of which was pounded with 250 really good relic hunters armed with GPX's. I also had to slide over for the tractor and spent the last 2 days on that same field. That field was one of the last sweet spots on the farm that was still holding plenty due to many farming and weather circumstances, so your relic senses were spot on. Looks like great company here so I'd like to share my DIV 50 fun as well for my first post. Once again nice hunt guys.