Dec 07 2010
Virginia boy finds Civil War sword
It’s truly the gift that keeps on giving.
A week after receiving a metal detector for his seventh birthday, Lucas Hall’s gift is already paying dividends for the first-grader.
While metal detecting with his father, Gary, on private property outside Berryville, Lucas had a feeling the two needed to stop and look.
His hunch paid off.
Buried six inches deep was a sword thought to have been used during the Civil War.
“We stopped on the four-wheelers and Lucas said ‘right here,”
Gary recounted Monday.
“So we started digging, and not a minute later, there it was.”
“I was excited,”
Lucas said.
But the pair was still unsure of their finding until they started digging deeper.
“We originally thought it was an old fence post,”
Gary said.
“I started pulling it out of the ground, and when I saw the handle I went ‘Oh my gosh.”‘
Lucas’s passion for metal detecting skyrocketed, his mother, Tina, said, after their neighbor gave him a few Civil War-era bullets he found while metal detecting on his property.
Lucas also likes the Science Channel show “Meteorite Men” - a program about two men who look for meteorite pieces with metal detectors.
“(The neighbor) gave me a lot of bullets,” Lucas said. “I like digging for them.”
“Lucas really likes the pursuit,” his mother said.
The family is still unsure what kind of care is needed to preserve their discovery, which has been sitting on a towel in their living room since it was found.
“That’s the biggest thing right now, just touching it makes it disintegrate, and I want to preserve this for him,” Gary said. “We haven’t had it to an expert yet because we aren’t sure who to take it to.”
Gary Crawford, president of the Kernstown Battlefield Association, examined a picture of the sword.
He believes it is a light cavalry sabre model 1840 or 1860, but said it’s too difficult based on its condition to determine where the sabre was manufactured or which side used it.
The handle design, Crawford said, helps narrow down the time period of manufacturing.
“There is really no way of knowing (which side used it) because many of these sabres were manufactured in the North before the war and stocked in southern armories,” he said. “When the war started, the South just took those weapons and passed them out to their troops.”
Crawford said that about 18 inches of the blade may be missing.
“It may still be in the ground,” Crawford said, “or it may have been broken and thrown away - that wouldn’t have been uncommon.”
Regardless of any monetary worth the sabre might possess, the family isn’t interested in selling the relic, Gary said.
“This is really just fun for him, and I want to keep it that way,” he said. “Lucas doesn’t have a concept of the Civil War, he just knows what we tell him. But when he gets older, I want him to look back on this and appreciate it.”
Tina said the sabre, and other findings, will be incorporated into home-schooling lessons for Lucas and his 9-year-old sister, Samantha.
Lucas has also found several Civil War rifle-musket and minie ball bullets.
“Now we can teach a unit on the Civil War,” she said. “When they dig something up, we can try and learn about it.”
Now that this boy has inspired you to go out and start your own adventure, make sure to visit Kellyco to find the perfect detector for you and maybe you too will be able to share a story about your amazing finds.
