Greg:
Civil War relic hunters have been slowly and increasing using GSP to assist them in finding relics and interpretating what they find. One of the most basic uses of the GPS is getting back to the exact place where you found that interesting relic a couple of weeks ago. Many "know" they can faithfully return to that spot but with the GPS it's easy. Much of metal detecting involves research into old location names (e.g., "where was the Mt. Zion Church mentioned in this diary?"} One can download from the USGS place name files the locations of many old features which no longer exist. Put these Lat-Lon locations in their GPS and drive to the location mentioned in the Civil War Diary. Other uses, besides locating your parked car in wooded areas, include taking waypoint locations of each relic found and plotting them with a computer program on a downloaded or scanned topo map or modern air photo. This helps define the "relic field" and allows for the more potential interpretation of who and when were the relics dropped as well as defining the limits of the campsite and its parts. This leads to potential nearby "look alikes." From the relic field plot, one can also begin to answer questions like "where was the officers' part of a campsite" or "where did the enlisted camp". All sorts of interesting things begin to tumble out of the plots of campste relic fields. Old road running through camps begin to emerge and all sorts of other interpretations are possible from the waypoint mapping. GPSing while metal detecting is not for all but it certainly "Kicks it up another notch". Personally I wish every detectorist would use one because it is one of the few ways we can effectly "trap" Civil War history in rural locations.
Modestly, I must admit that a lot of what I am talking about is in my booklet, "Interpreting History from Relics Found in Rural Civil War Campsites" which is available from David@Dixie at a nominal cost.
Hope this helps
Dave Poche
