Over 50,000 Americans died at Gettysburg, making it the bloodiest battle of the bloodiest war in our nation's history.
And if you'd stepped on this sucker, you might have been the last casualty of the Civil War.
From The Hill:
According to the park, the shell was found within the Little Round Top rehabilitation project area in the southwest corner of Little Round Top, the site of a Union victory over the Confederacy on July 2, 1863, amid the Battle of Gettysburg.
Officials with the park say the device dates to 1863. It weighs about 10 pounds, and measures about 7 inches long.
This is a national park, it's been around forever, and they still just now found this shell?
How did they miss it in the last 16 decades? I just find that hard to believe.
The shell was handled on Wednesday by the 55th Ordnance Disposal Company team from Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The team gently washed off the shell and removed it from Little Round Top to be destroyed off-site.
Local roads were closed on Wednesday afternoon after the device's discovery, though they have since reopened.
It's a pity they had to destroy this piece of history, but I guess that's better than leaving it in a museum where it could explode at any time.
I wonder if there are more artifacts like this one yet to be discovered.
If a place like Gettysburg – which you'd think would have been searched and excavated completely at this point – has this shell lying around, it might be worth your time to search any local battlefields near you.
