Andy, I haven't done any hunting in years, but when I was a kid back in the late 50's early 60's I did. I grew up in Hanover county, on the grounds of the old seven days/Cold Harbor battlefields. As kids we played in artillery and rifle pits left from the war. Minnie balls and Eagle buttons were often found on top of the ground after spring plowing or a hard rain.

My Grandfather hunted relics all the time. He had one room in his house full of display cabinets, that were crammed full of everything you can think of, and a lot of stuff you wouldn't. Buttons, bullets of all kinds, officers shoulder boards, belt buckles, cartridge box plates, sabers, knives, musket locks, pistol shaped hunks of rust, pocket waches, mess gear, horse tack, artillery shells, grapeshot, shrappnel, boot eyelets...well you get the picture. Although my grandfather/I never did, it wasn't unheard of for some "hunter" to find human remains known only to God. Usually they were left where they fell, but a couple of times I remember they were moved to one of the cemeteries around the area.

I did a little hunting myself but never found much more than minnie balls and such. Normally I just went with him and carried his hoe and helped him dig. "Scratch that dirt boy...don't chop at it."

I've seen a few hunters since I moved up here to Chancelorsville, but not many. I suspect the people who do it, have to get off the road and deep into the woods now. There is probably still tons of stuff out there to fnd. Just outside the window here are a series of rifle pits overlooking the river. I suspect it was a picket post and not part of an actual active battlefield, but not ten miles from here is where Stonewall Jackson launched his flank attack on Hookers (right?...It's early) flank. He was intending to drive the Federals back toward the river, where he hoped to pin them against the Rapadan/Rapahannock river and either force a surrender, or destroy them in detail. He of course was well on his way to doing that, when he was shot by his own men, about five miles from here, while scouting ahead of his lines, planning to resume the attack at night.

You can't swing a cat around this part of Virginia and not find a battlefield. Chancelorsville, Wilderness is just to the West, Fredericksburg to the east, Spotsylvania Court House to the south, Manassas to the north. And those are just the closest ones. Move south toward Richmond/Petersburgh, or west toward the Valley and you find more.

Probably more than you wanted to know. :)

A silent gun guards the battlefield at Chancelorsville.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...lefield069.jpg

This is one of the saddest places I've ever seen. It's a small Confederate cemetery just outside of Appomattox where we stopped for lunch one day. The twelve men resting here were killed in Lee's final, desperate attempt to break out of Grants encirclement. When that attack failed, Lee knew it was time to "Go and see General Grant."

One of the men here, the third from the left, IIRC, enlisted three days after Fort Sumter in 1861. He fought with the Army of Northern Virginia for four years, only to die in the final charge.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...omattox026.jpg

Thanks Wayne. That is so cool. Most of us here love this kind of history.
Happy Easter my new friend.:bigbye:
BTW, nice shooter you have there.

Wayne, Thank you for the great post. I am a bit of a Civil War buff. I have been interested in it since I was just a young boy. My son and I have been to Gettysburg, Manassas and Fredricksburg.
My grandmother's brother had a small farm in Virginia(can't remember where") and his chickens would dig up musket balls all the time. He knew I was interested in the Civil War so he would send a small bag of them up to me from time to time. Also I remember my grandmother showing me pictures of "Uncle Sye's farm house with the bullet holes still in the siding. I wish I could find out where exactly his farm was but alas there is nobody left to ask.

Wayne,
My latest copy of my Civil War Trust magazine was in the mail box yesterday and on the second page was this photo, could this be the same as the one you posted? This is a photo taken at Hazel Grove Chancellorsville Battlefield.

Yes, same position. I took the one I posted out on a motorcycle ride one day a few years ago, but it's the same location.

Getting back to the Trojan for a minute. I have a little 20 ga. that I mentioned in an earlier thread.
I think the Trojan is an important part of the whole Parker story.
It was an effort to reach an important demographic, who was looking for a no-frills quality tool for the job at hand. These guns were made to use, and used they were. High condition examples are rare, because of the very purpose of this gun.
The Parker company managed to create a very useful, and useable double gun, which I find to be a delight in the field. My little 20 is a virtual wand on the desert quail around my house.
I think any real Parker collection should have one, if nothing else, just to illustrate the other end of the quality shotgun spectrum. It’s beautiful simplicity. Take good care of it, but use it as the tool it was intended to be.

Wayne, thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions about relics and the history you are surrounded by. Old guns and love of history seem to go hand in hand. Andy

Thanks Todd. It's funny. When I first saw the gun on the rack I thought it looked "old and worn" I believe were the words I used to describe it. But I didn't think of that as being something bad. For the last few years I've been chasing after Smith & Wesson revolvers. We use the term "honest wear" to describe those guns that someone, usually a cop, carried every day and worked with. Scratches, dings, holster wear all give a gun "characer." Serious collectors usually don't pay such guns much attention, focusing on the more pistine examples with boxes and papers and such. Nothing wrong with that, I like them that way myself, but those guns with "character" have a lot to say for them. Sorry, getting off track there again.

Back to the Parker...but the more I looked at it, the better it looked. It just didn't have the "bright shiney new" look of a pristine gun right out of the box. It wasn't beat up or anything. It just had "character". I imagined it being carried by an man in a brown canvas hunting coat, and an old Jones style hunting hat...I haven't seen one of those in years...and he smoked a pipe...upside down when it rained.

My grandfather had a Parker 20 when I was a kid. I don't believe I ever even handled it. I just remember seeing it in the glass case at his house. He told me about it, but I never ever saw him with it that I recall. When I hunted with him, he always used his A.H. Fox Sterlingworth 12 ga. My uncle used the Parker a time or two dove and rabbit hunting. I just remember it was the prettiest thing. IIRC, my grandfather told me he bought it in 1928, and that he paid over $100.00 for it back then. He then sent it back to have auto-ejectors installed. He was quite proud of the gun. I'll have to ask my uncle about it. I'm sure he still has it.

Andy, those battlefields fueled a lifelong love for history I suppose. For me, growing up where something important happened "right here" was impressive. Being ten years old as the Civil War Centennial was getting started, didn't hurt either. It was a very impressionable time. The war was everywhere. Everyone talked about it. On the TV news, at the local store, at school. (We learned how the nobel Confederates were bested simply by the weight of the heathen yankee invaders. One southerner could beat ten yankees, but the yankees had fifty, which wasn't quite fair. :) )

Hardly a night went by when my grandfather didn't come home from "relic hunting" with something new in his bag. We'd set on the porch and dig through the bag and talk about what he'd found. He had books and books on the subject. He loved buttons. He'd find one he'd never seen, go get his "button book" and come back and look through it until he found a reference to it. If he couldn't find it, he'd look somewhere else. One of my great memories was not once, but twice finding buttons that he'd never seen.

Sorry. I'm rambling again.

Wayne, not only am I the current caretaker of my grandfatheres GH 20, he left a S&W .38 special M&P, pre model 10 I suspect, i've done very little research. Though not certain of his rank ot the time, he was a retired marine colonel who was stationed in Haiti in the late thirties. The story is that the 38 was taken off of a diciest haitian caco rebel. Knowing a bit of the history during the marine occupation, I hope this is an accurate account, considering the alternative.
The piece has been refinished by my father some time after pappy died. From what I remember of it, being a pitted pile of rust, it was needed.
Just thought you would like to hear a little history on this piece now knowing you have an interest in S&W.

Can you recommend a good Smith and Wesson forum, like this one?

Bobby