2023's Top 11 Picket posts: Fredericksburg cannonball house, fallen witness tree, loads of river artifacts, flag finial find -- and much more

Artifacts and archaeology continue to be big draws to this blog. The top 11 Civil War Picket posts – by Blogger page views -- in 2023 included posts on an impressive collection of period rifles, a Virginia home that comes with a cannonball and a flag finial found in the ravine of a Georgia battlefield.

We’ve got several items in the works (USS Monitor, Fort Sumter flags, POWs) and we look forward to rolling out those and more in 2024. Thanks so much for your continued interest. Please tell a friend or two about us. Happy New Year!

11. GETTYSBURG AMPUTEES: Even after 160 years, unpublished photographs associated with the Battle of Gettysburg occasionally come to light, including one unveiled this year depicting Federal amputees and other wounded recovering at a hospital. – Read more

10. CSI: NASHVILLE:  The Metro Nashville Historical Commission partnered with local police to study two unoccupied log structures at Sunnyside Mansion in Sevier Park. They wanted to solve the mystery regarding embedded bullets and holes discovered earlier this year in the cabin walls. Here’s what they learned – Read more

9. SAVING A CIVIL WAR SURVIVOR: Restoring the Adam Strain building in Darien, Ga., and an adjoining one-story building is a labor of pure craftsmanship and sweat equity. The Strain survived the burning of the coastal town during the Civil War. – Read more

8. HOME COMES WITH A CANNONBALL: A piece of ordnance on an upper-floor brick wall is among the selling points for a 1848 Greek Revival residence in Fredericksburg, Va. As many as 100 shells a minute exploded over the town during the Dec. 11, 1862, Union bombardment. – Read more

7. LOADED WITH RIFLES: The Atlanta History Center, home to the Cyclorama painting depicting the Battle of Atlanta and a major exhibit on the Civil War, has acquired dozens of weapons in the past couple of years, bringing the total inventory to nearly 400. – Read more

6. WITNESS TREE DIES: An imposing witness tree that greeted visitors to Resaca Battlefield Historic Site in northwest Georgia is gone, lost to weather and old age. The spot where the tree was located is approximately the area where the Union’s 20th Corps and the 14th Corps overlapped one another during the 1864 battle. – Read more

5. FLAG FINIAL: Staff members and volunteers at Pickett’s Mill Battlefield near Atlanta thought a weathered finial – an ornament placed on the top of a flag – might be a reproduction. Here’s what they now say, and why. – Read more

4. MIGHTY MILITARY MINIATURES: Visitors to Gettysburg National Military Park in Augusta saw up to 300 military miniatures at an exhibition that supported efforts to conserve the park’s 2^nd North Carolina Infantry flag. Officials said the regiment likely carried the flag at Gettysburg in July 1863. The unit brought 243 men to the field and suffered 61 casualties in three days of fighting. – Read more

3. BRAILLE MARKERS AT GETTYSBURG: Three new markers feature landscape elevations that visitors are encouraged to touch. They were inspired by a massive topographic map created more than a century ago and on display at the visitor center. The creation of the tactile tables is part of a larger project to update interpretive signage throughout the park. – Read more

2. TREASURE TROVE: Descendants of Capt. James Lile Lemon of Georgia traveled to the Atlanta History Center to see items that belonged to him. Dozens of Civil War-period items were laid out on tables. Almost all related to a single soldier -- a curator's dream. There were personal items, a captured drum, revolver, letters, canteen, photographs and much more. – Read more

1. HUNDREDS OF ARTIFACTS PULLED FROM RIVER: Some of the captured weapons and ammunition that Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s troops dumped into the Congaree River in Columbia, S.C., in the last months of the Civil War reemerged during an environmental project that removed tar from the riverbed The haul included including cannonballs (photo above), canister, remnants of a saber and wagon wheel and dozens of bullets. – Read more