February 2023, Recent Relic Finds

I have not been able to get the relic-hunting machines into the winter fields as much as I would like. I thought about aging and semi-retirement (what I call not being able to find enough business to call myself fully working – believe me I want to work, too!) would give me enough time to sate my overwhelming desire to pull ‘mysteries of histories’ out of the ground. As parenthetically implied above, this is not necessarily true. I still crave the peeps, squeaks, and moans of the metal detector. The weather has not been bad. It is easy digging. I have found plenty of new, often undiscovered and uncovered – by other relic hunters – spots to ply my hobby, and my son, Tom, and I have had some reasonably good finds.

But the diggings have been good. Above are displayed one of God’s little anomalies, and yes, relic hunting is a religious experience for me. Concerning the two dimes above, I found the one dated 1856 is exactly 100 years older than me as I was born in 1956. The odd part is that I had never found a seated Liberty Dime ever since I started hunting at the age of twelve, but the other one, dated 1876, was found 100 yards away from me on the same day at about the same time by my son, Tom! He comes walking up, coolly, as I’m in ecstasy, jabbering, speaking in tongues about finding the 1856 dime, and calmly displays his dime in the palm of his hand. I froze for a few moments, I suppose – I don’t know – time gets all ‘Einstein’ and relative in moments of great relic-hunting revelations – and I started foaming at the mouth, making far less sense than before. "Synchronicity!" I finally exclaim! 

Also, there are photos of recent lead relics relative to the Civil War pictured above: projectiles found in the Franklin – Brentwood area. There is a Spencer Rifle round, fired from Spencer Rifles and carbines, relatively fast loading weapons that tripled the amount of fire a soldier could put out in a minute. The one above was found by Tom Baugh, along with a “buck and ball” load with one fired misshapen ball smaller than the ball buckshot. These Carbine versions were often used by Cavalry units with withering effect on the enemy as at Franklin and Nashville. They were US weapons and the CSA used captured versions.

The non-hexagonal Whitworth round was 0.577 caliber and fired from the very accurate Whitworth Rifle often used by snipers of both sides. I have never found one with the hexagonal shaping that made them even more accurate and deadly.

I often hunt Franklin Road between Franklin and Brentwood because after the disaster on the second day of the Battle of Nashville when the Confederate left was turned at Shy’s Hill causing a stampede like rout of Hood’s forces there, the broken Army of Tennessee fell back in uncontrolled retreat down Granny White Pike and through Brentwood to Franklin Road through Franklin in a mass, throwing aside anything that would weigh the soldiers down, like ammunition and weapons. The Federals pursued the Confederates through Columbia and literally out of the State. It was the end of the Army of Tennessee, and basically the end of the War between the States.

It is a shame that we relic hunters use discrimination modes on our detectors to discriminate our all-ferrous items in preference for non-ferrous items like lead, brass, copper, silver, and gold for they are the best indicators of activity and worth more. We probably pass over the oxidizing and rotting larger Iron items like guns, shells, and other tools that would tell a greater story, and which in a matter of years will deteriorate away.

I have grown to detest aluminum. Tom and I have been on several recent digs and beer and soft drink cans, their pull tabs and screw tops have been killing us! I do not care how excellent metal detector technology is, the ones I work with – good middle-or-the-road-machines – discriminate buried cans as silver or Civil War belt buckles, and bottle tops, caps, and pull-tabs (Antique now? If so, they are a nuisance!), and chewing-gum wrappers as coins or brass buttons. There are some very fine locations that have deep historic roots where one item I dig up out of twenty is not aluminum. It takes a considerable amount of patience!

I confess, I reckon in my day I littered with the best of them. I hate it now and curse aluminum cans with vehemence!

These marvelous experiences pass after a day or so. I suppose it is like landing the dream fish to the angler, or the large trophy to the hunter. There is no blood shed or pain involved other than sweat digging up countless worthless aluminum junk (except for the occasional aluminum token which can be cool), and that pain is hard on us with bad knees or backs.

So, when a relic hunter, such as myself approaches you about hunting your property, particularly with me, there is a reason why I want to search your real estate – I have my reasons for thinking that interesting finds are possible there. I do a lot of research to find places where items of historic significance may be found, and as most know whose property I have searched, I love to give my finds to the property owners should they desire them, and I leave no mess!

Contact me at www.ffbaugh.com, frank@ffbaugh.com, to prove history by pulling the tell-tale relics from the History beneath our feet.

©2023, Frank F. Baugh