I found a bullet!
Tuesday as I was gardening and clearing rocks out of the soil, I came across what I thought was a very abnormally heavy rock. I took a second look at it and realized it was a bullet! If you did not know, I dont live very far from Chickamauga Battlefields (about ten miles) and there was actually a Civil War skirmish fought on the property I live on, so I was pretty sure it was a Civil War bullet.
This is the bullet atop a water bottle lid.
I went to the Chickamauga Battlefield museum today to see if they could tell me anything about it. I had looked online at different types of Civil War era bullets, but it did not match any of them. The historian that was at the museum took a good look at it and fetched a book to identify the type.
It turns out it is a Spencer Rifle carbine round.
They were super high tech back then. Regular muzzle loading guns could only fire about 2-3 per minute because they had to reload after each shot. The fancy Spencer repeating rifle could take 6 bullets and a time and could do about 20 per minute! He told me that it was a relatively rare type of bullet to be found here. It was used by Union Cavalry who were stationed here in Ringgold under Colonel John T. Wilder.The historian told me there were only 2,000 of the rifles in Wilder’s brigade, making an intact round harder to find.
This is Colonel Wilder. I might have his bullet!