Never stop swinging

[Ragin Cajun]

We've always heard, on your way back to the car, keep swinging that detector you never know what you might find.  Rembering this led to my favorite find.  I was hunting a civil war era plantation in Louisiana.  After about 4 hours, I had a 1938 Walker, a 1963 Franklin, and a 1938 Washington quarter and a lot of junk for my efforts.  Nice silver finds, but disappointing since I was really looking for some civil war relics.  As I was getting ready to leave, the 88 year old caretaker for the property came over to see what I had found.  He told me about an old shed at the back of the property that had been torn down in 1947.  He related that as a young boy of 10 or 11, ( back in 1930) he remembered seeing through a window in the shed, a rack of what he thought were swords.  This immediately got my attention.  I thought, civil war era, there were several calvary battles in the area and the plantation had been used as a hospital by both sides.  There's got to be some relics here, perhaps those were calvary swords.  It's amazing what your imagination can conger up.

I walked the 3/4 mile back to the site and found the shed foundations.  After about an hour of detecting and finding and digging enough tin and junk metal to fill a dump truck, I finally gave up.  Tired and discouraged, I turned off my detector and started the long walk back to the car.  Then I remembered what I had been told many times, never give up.  So I turned it back on and walked another 50 feet and got a loud signal and overload indication on the meter.  I thought, more tin and junk.  I was not going to dig anymore of this.  So I kicked at the thick layer of oak leaves and muck covering the area and encountered a sharp piece of metal that punctured my boot.  I noticed what looked like a knife blade sticking up out of the thick grass and mud.  My first thought was civil war relic.  As I continued to clear the muck away, I uncovered a bayonet with a wooden handle and more blades underneath.   I found 14, half of which had their wooden handles still intact.  Not civil war, but still quite old.  These turned out to be 2 foot long British Pattern 1907 MK1 "sword bayonets" for the Short Magazine Lee Enfield Rifle from WWI.  These were definitely the "swords" as seen by the eyes of a 10 year old boy. 

How they got to the plantation is a mystery lost in time.  The plantation owner's son might have brought them back to be used as cane knives to harvest the sugar cane crops.  They were probably retrieved from the battlefields, perhaps from the Fields of Flanders or the Argonne Forest where they were used by our British brothers to help our Doughboys slay the Huns.  Standing there holding these relics of the "Great War to end all Wars" was a very humbling experience.  This was and still is, my favorite find in 45 years of detecting.

Unfortunately I've lost the picture of all 14 as recovered, but have attached pictures of several after cleaning.

[Scruch]

Wow!!! Now, that is just too cool! WTG Cajun, very nice find's.

[Larry]

What a find that was.

[CoinHunter]

Cajun this is a fantastic story. When we were talking last Sunday I knew it would be fantastic if you would take time and relate it to our forum members. I hope someday to be able to make as great a find as this but currently it is still on my Bucket List. Our son just purchased 8 acres in Sumter County SC that was part of a very large cotton plantation during the great war. I am doing some research on it and hoping to score a trip over that way soon. He has already learned a small amount about the history of the area and he knows the owners of another 250 or so acres that are adjacent to it. I hope to get permission to hunt this area as well. Who knows maybe I can work up a club hunt/trip. I really enjoyed our hunt and I hope we can get back together and return to that site for some more coil swinging. Perhaps we can get a few of our buddies to go with us and make it even more enjoyable. I will gladly take your finds in for the meeting if you want me to. Just let me know.

[Mr. Vision]

That was awesome.I dream of finding something like that one of these days.

[Ragin Cajun]

Thanks for all the kind words.  Until I joined S.M.A.R.T.S. I was strictly a coin and jewelry detectorist.  But after seeing the civil war relics that club members bring in, I really got interested in relic hunting.  Floyd Parsons got me started and now that's my new passion although I still enjoy finding those coins.  It was fun telling the story and I hope other members will tell us their experiences.
This is a great forum and my thanks to those who started it and contribute.  Join in, it's fun.