Last week a detecting friend of mine Terry McClemments, “Delaware Digger” contacted me to ask if I would be interested in joining him on a three day detecting trip to Richmond, VA. He said a friend of his had invited him and another friend down to do some Civil War Relic hunting on private property that he had permission to hunt on. A few days before the hunt Terry's friend could not go so he called me. I told him I would see if I could get off work Monday and clear it with the wife. By Thursday everything was a go and we left early Saturday morning.
After meeting up with Terry's friend Chris Johnson we had a nice buffet breakfast at Shoneys and headed out for the first field to hunt that day. The weather was in the 70's and partly cloudy. Unusual weather for being this close to Christmas. I had participated in two other organized Virginia Civil War hunts but had never found a Civil war button so I was hoping to cross that off my bucket list of detecting finds. We put on our gear and fired up our Minelabs. I was using my E-TRAC and the others were using the new CTX 3030s.
I started out across the field and in about a hundred yards had my first promising signal showing around eight inches deep. I dug down carefully not to damage my find and checking the clump with my Pinpointer I spotted something round and domed. To my surprise my first find of the day was a beautiful Louisiana State Button in great shape with the shank on the back still intact. I couldn't believe my first find was my wished for Civil war button.
After that find I started out again and halfway across the field I heard another signal and found a 1866 two cent piece and then a three cent silver Trime with no date showing. Wow things were looking up. We took some lunch and then headed to the next field to hunt for the afternoon. Our host Chris told us that they had found a lot of buttons and bullets there. We were anxious to get hunting and I felt like I was in a competition hunt. I had only gone a little way and dug up another button but this time it was a Cavalry button with Eagle and letter “C” in the middle. I was so excited I jumped up and started doing my victory dance what looked more like a Philadelphia Mummer's strut with my digger and detector in the air. Chris saw me across the field and knew I had found something good and headed over to see what I had found... I was really excited now and then I started finding bullets all over the place some dropped and some fired. My bullet count kept climbing with three ringers, Sharps and Enfields coming out of the ground. I looked around and saw my companions were also doing a lot of digging as well.
Just before dark we had a round up at Chris's pickup tailgate to see all of our finds to photograph and take video's with commentary. My group of finds were the last to be checked and when the local guy Wes saw my finds he was getting all excited and saying to me when he picked up my first button of the day. “Do you know what this is?” I had thought it was just an Eagle button but after cleaning off some of the mud with some water they saw it was an intact Louisiana State Button. And when they saw my two cent coin they couldn't believe how lucky I had been. Then as he was going thru my other assorted flat buttons and saw a small one and when he Wes got some of the mud off it, he says to me “You know this is a coin?” I thought it was a little flat button that I had casually dropped in my finds box. It turned out to be a Silver three cent Trime! I couldn't believe it. They were all saying Woody really cleaned up with that E-TRAC of his and in honor of the Louisiana State Button I was given the new nickname “Boudreaux from the Bayou”. My banner find of the day!
The next day we had a short hunt in the rain and I added another Eagle button and some more bullets and my friend Terry even found a Spanish cut Reale. Also Chris and Wes found two parts to the same Native American Adena point that fitted together perfectly and they were found about 100 yards apart. We thanked our host Chris for being so kind in inviting us down to hunt with him and we headed back North after making new metal detecting friends from Virginia and a lot of stories to share with our hunting buddies back home. Terry and I agreed this was the best metal detecting experience of our entire lives. Many thanks to our new friends in Virginia. Chris, Wes and Rob.
Woody McKay - Pennsylvania, USA