Hands-on learning: These artifacts may not be eligible for the museum, but they still have a lot to teach Kennesaw Mountain park visitors about the Civil War

Several items from the federal park's education collection (KMNBP)

If an item is under glass at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park’s museum and visitor center, you can be sure provenance has been proven and it has a firm connection to the June 1864 fighting there or the Atlanta Campaign.

Many artifacts found on trails or donated to the park don’t meet that standard. But that’s OK – they can still educate visitors during interpretive programs and field trips.

I asked Jake Boling, a Kennesaw Mountain park ranger and education coordinator, for a little more detail after a  #MuseumMonday social media post about the education collection.

Boling stressed a museum-level item needs to have historic context, including a specific location and chain of custody.

“A good example of this is when a visitor brings in a box full of Minie balls that they found in their basement, which could be from any Civil War site,” Boling said in an email. “We would not be interested in the Minie balls for our museum collection, but they could be a useful educational tool.”

Unlike items at the museum, artifacts in the education collection can often be touched and held by visitors.

The North Georgia park posted a photograph (above) with many items of that type: three pocket Bibles, shell fragments on either side of a 12-pound solid shot, and at bottom, an Enfield round, musket ball and a Minie ball round.  (While all of the artifacts in the photo are original, some used for interpretation are reproductions.)

The Bibles are examples of those commonly carried by soldiers in the field, wrote Boling.

The shell fragments come various types of explosive artillery rounds. The solid cannon ball would have been used with a 12 pound, smoothbore Napoleon cannon. The Enfield round would have been used in Enfield rifles, whereas the Mine ball would have most likely been used in a Springfield model rifled musket, he said. The round ball could have been used in a number of different smoothbore muskets. 

Artifacts in the education collection are shown in a variety of programs. Sometimes, they are taken off-site.

“Broadly, these items help our interpretive audience actually feel and hold (in some cases) a piece of history. While we may not have the specifics on the when and where of these items, being able to feel the weight of a cannonball or the sharp edges of an artillery shell can facilitate a connection with the resources here,” said Boling. 

Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is putting on 160^th anniversary programming this month. Events include hikes, music and infantry, artillery and signal corps demonstrations.