GETTYSBURG TIMES - Feb 8, 2023
By Jim Hale Times Staff Writer
An archaeologist discovered an unexploded Civil War shell Wednesday afternoon near Little Round Top in Gettysburg National Military Park.
Nearby roads were closed as military experts determined how to dispose of what may have been a projectile from a Parrott rifled cannon, park Communications Specialist Jason Martz said.
A two-person team from the U.S. Army 55th Ordnance Disposal Company EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) unit, Fort Belvoir, Va., was on the scene.
The EOD team “safely removed the shell before it was destroyed off-site” and “gently washed off the mud to allow park staff to photograph the shell,” according to Martz.
The shell was on the north side of Warren Avenue in the southwestern portion of the Little Round Top area, Martz said.
The discovery came during the long-running renovation project on Little Round Top.
Contract archaeologist Steven Brann has been “tied at the hip to the construction contractor,” Martz said.
Whenever workers “put any kind of a shovel into the ground, the archaeologist goes in first and sweeps the area,” and records the position of any artifact that is found “so its story is maintained,” he said.
Brann “got a hit, dug for it, realized what it was” and “got out in a hurry,” Martz said.
“The National Park Service has a simple and straightforward protocol for this type of thing,” and each park has identified a military unit that can help, he said.
The shell was not the first artifact found since the Little Round Top renovation began, but it “is an outlier for sure. You could call it unique,” he said.
Other finds have included Civil War bullets called Minie balls, percussion caps, and other “run-of-the-mill infantry content,” which is what officials had “largely expected” to find, Martz said.
The shell appeared to be from the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 rather than from World War I era artillery training related to the Army’s nearby Camp Colt, which was commanded by a young Dwight Eisenhower, Martz said.
The South Confederate, Crawford, Ayers and South Sickles avenues closures were to be lifted once the area was declared safe, according to a post on the park’s Facebook page.
The $13 million rehabilitation project began in July last year, and the Little Round Top area is expected to be close for approximately 18 months, according to the park website.
The project aims to “address overwhelmed parking areas, poor accessibility and related safety hazards, significant erosion, and degraded vegetation” and “enhance the visitor experience with improved interpretive signage, new accessible trail alignments, and gathering areas,” according to the website.
