Historical writer Robert Grandchamp reviewed on the Civil War News web resource Robert H.C. Alton's book "Stratagem 1861: Early Civil War Tactics and the Battle for the Potomac" dealing with an eight-month bit of the War "between the Union defeat at Bull Run in July 1861 and the beginning of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign in March 1862". Metal detecting lobbyists were upset by the topic touched on at the end of the review, the reviewer considers that the coverage given to relic hunting "severely detracts from this otherwise interesting work":
Perhaps the most shocking part of the book is the final third, in which Alton delves into the world of relic hunting in Northern Virginia. He describes various Confederate campsites and the relics recovered there. He says they were recovered on private property with permission. As a professional historian, this reviewer believes that artifacts such as these need to be studied by professionals [...]. these sites destroys the context of the artifacts and scholars’ ability to gain access to them as they disappear into private collections. While there is little money available in these tough times to fund professional “digs,” state governments need to provide protection until these sites can be properly studied by professionals instead of being destroyed by amateurs bent on finding the next Confederate belt buckle for their collections.
Obviously metal detector owners in the USA are at a severe disadvantage if they want to look for ancient relics, there aren't any. So they are reduced to searching historical sites for "interesting" things to collect. Over here our hearts bleed for some poor jerk who makes a fool of himself (seen from over here) by posting a You Tube video in which he gets ecstatically excited about finding a diecast metal toy car or 1923 cent. The plundering of old US battlefields for collectables is doubly tragic destruction of potential historic evidence as it was in the US that the use of planned metal detector surveys in battlefield archaeology was pioneered, yet despite the insistence that "metal detecting is good for history" by US collectors' rights lobbyists, it seems not all US metal detectorists are willing to apply best practice to their own activities to ensure that it is. It seems to me that instead of knocking the reviewer for pointing it out, activists for a responsible hobby should be agreeing with what he says about indiscriminate artefact hunting on battlefield sites.
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