Along with the shot find.. I was there researching our family history. Based off my grandfather side of the family. Turns out two cousins fought in the same battle at the beginning of the revolutionary war near Wilmington, NC (
https://www.ncpedia.org/wilmington-campaign-1781) and again fought the battle at Gilford courthouse. Yet they we're not in the same division or the same rank, But had the same first and last names.
Then come to find out that on my grandmother side of the family, there was another family member who fought at the battle of Gilford court house at the same time the two cousins were there. The sad thing here, is that the grave sites where they are, (two different grave sites) have went into disrepair.
One, we've been trying to keep clean and clean while the other one we can't access due to it being on now private property. Knowing this we make a habit to drive to those sites we have access to and place either a confederate flag on our families plots whom fought during the civil war and the battle standard of the Gilford courthouse for those whom fought at the the courthouse.
The story about our civil war veteran goes like this.. during the last days of the war, he was shot and captured at Gettysburg, taken to fort Delaware, starved then hanged for horse thievery. His body was drained of fluids (essentially mummified) in preparation for the long trip back to North Carolina. This would take several days to complete by horse drawn wagon.
There's been no records of any of our family being in any other wars after this.
This is our history and heritage, what's yours..