ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603040107
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER
It was said to be a pristine hunting ground for Civil War artifacts.
And the prospect of working undug, unhunted land in the heart of Virginia's battlegrounds brought two-time Daytona 500 champion Sterling Marlin to the state a bit earlier than usual Thursday.
Marlin, an enthusiastic Civil War relic hunter, enjoys the NASCAR race weekends at Richmond International Raceway because they give him a chance to hunt the Richmond-area battlefields with a metal detector.
In the past couple of years, Marlin has found almost 100 wartime bullets, known as Minie balls, on farmland between Mechanicsville and Cold Harbor, both scenes of heavy fighting during the war.
But the host for this day was Ray Grubbs of Chester, an excavator and relic hunter extraordinaire, who owns a chunk of the Bermuda Hundred on the James River known as Trent's Reach.
``The armies was in here for 14 months, firing back and forth, so there's still a pile of stuff in the ground here,'' Grubbs said.
Grubbs has been hunting for more than 30 years, and he has a hundred stories. He excavated the site of the old Confederate commissary in downtown Richmond, and found more than 5,000 buttons.
He and others found the remains of a Union ship that had blown up in the James River near his property and recovered more than 100 muskets. Once, he found a complete saber buried to its hilt in the mud along the riverbank.
But those were the good old days. There's so many relic hunters now, and so little unhunted land, that it's a challenge to find good hunting ground.
Marlin has been hunting for about five years. His best find, made on the bloody battleground of Franklin, Tenn., near his home, is the top of a battle flagstaff, with the spread wings of an eagle. Mostly, Marlin finds bullets. He estimates he's found about 500 Minie balls.
The site for the day's hunt was a tract of woodland along the James between Hopewell and Chester. Pennsylvania troops camped on this land for many months in 1864 and 1865. And as every relic hunter knows, soldiers dropped things where they camped.
``We searched here last year,'' Grubbs said, ``and we found a whole pile of stuff - shovels, a pick, bottles. And two bugles.''
``Well, let's go,'' said Marlin.
Sterling brought an extra metal detector, so in the space of a minute, I'm in business, too. We all march into the woods, spread out, and begin to hunt.
I've been a Civil War collector most of my life, but I have almost no experience with relic hunting.
Using the the earphones of a metal detector is something like spending the afternoon listening to the Emergency Broadcast System tone.
With the metal detector I was using, I heard a constant, droning tone. And as I swept the ground plate of the detector over the top of the ground, I would listen for that tone to change. If the tone changed, I had a hit.
But it wasn't that simple. I kept getting `hits,' only to lose the signal altogether when I tried to pinpoint the spot. So I struggled along, dodging tree limbs and briars.
Suddenly, I got a hit. And there it was, right on the surface, hidden in the leaves. It was a hubcap. A Ford Model-T hubcap. It was at least 70 years old.
Not bad, except Marlin drives a Chevy.
A few moments later, one of Grubbs' friends, Bruce Dean, called to me and Winston Cup Illustrated photographer LaDon George.
``That's a good signal right there,'' he said, pointing to a spot on the ground. George and I both swept our detectors over the spot. Both of us got `hits.'
``See what it is,'' said Dean, walking away. ``I'll die if it's a Confederate button.''
So we started digging. We found nothing. Both of us ran our detectors over the small pile of dirt. We couldn't even get a signal anymore. We covered up the hole.
Dean returned. ``Did y'all get that?'' he asked.
``We can't find the signal anymore,'' I said.
So Dean ran his metal detector over the spot, slammed his entrenching tool into the ground, pulled up a hunk of earth, sifted it through his fingers and produced, as if by magic, a small-caliber cartridge bullet from the Civil War.
``It's just real hard ground to read anything in,'' Dean said. ``It doesn't matter what kind of detector you have.''
Marlin, meanwhile, was not having any luck either.
``Found a few shotgun hulls is all,'' he said. ``Lot of pretty big holes over yonder.''
He was right. The woods was dotted with the telltale holes of other hunters.
The land was no longer pristine. It had been hunted. But it was far from a dry hole. This became obvious when we came upon Grubbs. In about 90 minutes of hunting, using an old machine that looked as if it was held together with baling wire and tape, Grubbs had found six Minie balls, a Union eagle button, a crushed match container, a rusted hammerhead and several other chunks of metal. And Dean had found three buttons.
But Marlin was ready to go to Mechanicsville, where George's uncle owns a farm on battlefield land. Marlin was certain he would find something there.
And on Friday morning at Richmond International Raceway, on the verge of the first Winston Cup practice, Marlin stuck his gloved hand out the window of his Chevy and motioned me over.
At dusk in Mechanicsville, he had hit pay dirt.
``Found five bullets and a piece of brass. Something off a uniform I think,'' he said. ``We probably didn't hunt but for about 15 minutes. Must have been a hell of a fight there.''
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: BOB ZELLER/Staff. Sterling Marlin uses a metal detectorby CNBto search for Civil War artifacts during a recent outing near
Richmond.