CHESTER, Va. (AP) — 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, Mr. White’s hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.
More than 140 years after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from Mr. White’s home in this leafy Richmond suburb.
His death shook the close-knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lie buried beneath old battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.
“You can’t drop these things on the ground and make them go off,” said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps.
Mr. White, 53, was one of thousands of hobbyists who, with metal detectors, pickaxes, shovels and trowels, comb former battlegrounds for artifacts.
“There just aren’t many areas in the South in which battlefields aren’t located,” said Harry Ridgeway, a former relic hunter who has amassed a vast collection. “They’re literally under your feet. It’s just a huge thrill to pull even a mundane relic out of the ground.”
After growing up in Petersburg, Mr. White went to college, served on his local police force, then worked for 25 years as a deliveryman for UPS. He retired in 1998 and devoted most of his time to relic hunting.
Mrs. White didn’t share her husband’s devotion, but she was understanding of his interest.
“True relic hunters who have this passion, they don’t live that way vicariously, like if you were a sports fanatic,” she said. “Finding a treasure is their touchdown, even if it’s two, three bullets.”
Union and Confederate troops lobbed an estimated 1.5 million artillery shells and cannonballs at each other from 1861 to 1865. As many as one in five were duds.
Mr. White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore.
His efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son, Travis, sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked.
“Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it,” said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. “He did know Civil War ordnance.”
An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will not be complete until the end of this month, but police who responded to the blast and examined shrapnel concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive.
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