"everything there would have been lost. I became interested in this site and was able to piece together much of how the engagement was fought because local artifact collectors were kind enough to show me their collections and walk the ground with me, explaining what was found and where."

I have no problem with Relic Hunters who do this and assist the preservation community. I also have been able to piece together historical sites and events in Arkansas because of the finds for a couple of GOOD relic hunters.

But it is the ones who are into relic hunting for profit, and/or who are so secretive about the sites and finds that they have made, that gives the relic hunters a bad name in general. And that applies not only to Civil War artifacts but to native american relic and pottery and any other area of american history, where our knowledge would be deminished when such things are removed. A rare bullet found in a certain spot on a battlefield is a great identifier of who was on that field. I have seen many relic hunters displays with such rare bullets in them. You ask the person where he found it and he cannot usually tell you. OR won't tell you and to me there is no difference.

Every relic hunter I know has a box or a bucket of lead bullets setting in a corner in his shed. To me setting in that bucket those old bullets are just so much scrap lead worth only a few pennies a pound. But laying on a battlefield the story they can tell is of far greater value if the relic hunter will only record the proper information and that information gets to the right preservationist. But that is a responcibility that most relic hunter do not want to assume when they pick something up off a historic site.

It is not the finding or removal of these things that is the rub. For even the professional archealogist will do that. It is the loss of the information which that item can provide when it is found and that is so often lost that bugs me.

Most relic hunters don't keep a journal of their finds because it is too much trouble and you can find bullets anywhere. But that bullet got to that battlefield because someone toted it there.