By RUSTY DENNEN
Large, organized Civil War relic hunts are a relatively new phenomenon in Virginia.
The Grand National Relic Shootout at Crow's Nest, with about 150 metal-detector-toting participants, is the second in the area this year.
Last spring, about 200 relic hunters attended a three-day hunt in Culpeper County. That was sponsored by another group, Diggin' in Virginia.
Jack Edlund, a relic hunter and owner of Salvage Archaeology in Fredericksburg, said the large, fee-based hunts are fairly similar in how they operate.
"You get a bunch of guys who all pay whatever to rent some farmer's field for a weekend. They start in the morning, dig until 5 and then everybody stops for the day," he said yesterday.
Though most privately owned area sites have been picked over for years, there's plenty left to find. Union soldiers encamped in Stafford, for example, left behind bullets, uniform buttons and belt buckles, stirrups, pieces of bayonets, rifles, dinnerware, remnants of canteens and the like.
Burt Alderson of Tennessee, a judge for the Grand National Relic Shootout, said yesterday that most participants keep their finds.
"Some of these people come from all over the country," he said. "If they find one thing, they're in love."
Though many relic hunters carefully document what they've found, and where, for posterity, some are in it for the money.
Rare belt buckles sell for thousands of dollars on eBay. Almost any Civil War artifact--from bullets to brass scabbard and knapsack components, are sought by collectors.
Crow's Nest, purchased by K&M Properties Inc. in the late 1980s, had a role in American Indian, Colonial and Civil War history.
But Alderson said hunters didn't find much during yesterday's outing. That's probably because people with metal detectors have scoured the land since the 1950s.
The Patawomeck tribe settled at Indian Point, across Accokeek Creek from Crow's Nest. Col. Gerard Fowke was the first recorded owner of the property in the early 17th century.
A plantation house on Crow's Nest was confiscated by the Union Army in 1862 to serve as a lookout over the two creeks and the Potomac River, and the house and outbuildings were reportedly burned. Local historians say there were at least five Union camps on the property.
Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, takes a dim view of large relic hunts.
"Archaeology, by its very nature, is destructive, by removing artifacts on sites. But if it's not done correctly, a lot of it is lost--the capacity of the site to tell its story with all its nuances," she said.
"The large-scale removal of relics for the sake of the relics themselves" without knowledge and understanding that can be gained from them, "that's a great loss and you end up with stuff."
Said Kilpatrick, "We understand that it's private property, but at the same time we discourage this because it's a loss of public benefit, knowledge and understanding.
"Everyone we've seen has been in areas that are archaeologically rich. A lot of it ends up on eBay."
She added, "We understand the relic-hunting impulse, the interest in artifacts and history. We like to channel that into responsible archaeology. It doesn't have to be either-or."
There have been several hunts like the one in Stafford in other parts of Virginia in recent years.
When asked about opponents of the practice, Alderson said: "Someone's always objecting to something."
State lawmakers are aware of the issue. Two years ago, legislation on archaeological sites was proposed, but never enacted. One measure would have required relic hunters to get written permission from the landowner; another would have raised the penalty for trespassing for the purpose of relic hunting.
"I'm on the record of being scornful of relic hunters," said Robert K. Krick, a local author, historian and authority on the Civil War. "They're just diggers who destroy the provenance of things." Artifacts taken from a site today won't be there in the future if and when archaeologists investigate.
"I'm somewhere in the middle," says Edlund, who sells artifacts in his shop at the Old Stone Warehouse downtown. He says many of the Civil War artifacts in the ground are deteriorating and won't be there to find years down the road.
"Some guys are into it just for the money. Other guys have a heck of a lot of knowledge" and a desire to understand and appreciate what they find.
"As a collector, I like fingering the artifact. You pick up that button that scared [soldier] camping out in the woods dropped, or an arrowhead an Indian shot I think it's good. If it gives you an appreciation for history, all the better."
Staff reporter Jeff Branscome contributed to this story.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN:
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com