Hobby cost collector his life, shaking close-knit community of relic hunters
CHESTER, Va. - Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown.
As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms.
But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway. More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White's home in this leafy Richmond suburb.
Story Continues.....
Civil War cannonball explodes, kills collector
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Disinfertention
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Very informative article. I didn't realize this either. The cannonball he was restoring actually sounds almost more like a modern day torpedo....Disinfertention wrote:I didn't even know a cannon ball could explode. I thought the most that was done to them was that they were heated to help catch stuff on fire.
" The weapon also had to be waterproof because it was designed to skip over the water at 600 mph to strike at the waterline of an enemy ship. ''
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K.Ingraham
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They had shrapnel rounds then.
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2d Bn U.D. for 75th Ranger Regt Assn
2d Bn(Ranger)75 Inf 1975-'77
RS 9-76
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"I am well aware that by no means equal repute attends the narrator and the doer of deeds” Sallust ‘The Catiline Conspiracy’
2d Bn U.D. for 75th Ranger Regt Assn
2d Bn(Ranger)75 Inf 1975-'77
RS 9-76
Former mentor to RANGER XCrunner.
"I am well aware that by no means equal repute attends the narrator and the doer of deeds” Sallust ‘The Catiline Conspiracy’
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coldsteal2
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"Hi, Charles Darwin here....your shit is weak, come with me....."
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Repeal the 16th, enforce the 10th.
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124 MI(LRSD) 90-91 (Desert Storm)
Repeal the 16th, enforce the 10th.
ΜΩΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all." Gen. James Mattis
Panem Et Circenses
My safe space
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Silverback
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