MentalMetal314 Relic Revelation: The World's Largest Viaduct is Located in Maryland.

Old photo of the Thomas Viaduct in Maryland

The title of this post is a fact. If you head to Maryland Department of Nature Resources reference to this bridge, it will tell you everything that I could post here. However, I'll give you a different view from my perspective.

You see, I never really knew much about this bridge until last year when my buddy and I were given the privilege and permission to metal detect on a piece of private property near the viaduct. From my discussions with a fellow colleague at, he informed me about the Civil War activity that took place in the area and the importance of the viaduct. (Again, hit the DNR link above for this story). He also informed me that someone had found Civil War relics on his property. At the time I was relatively new or at least getting reacquainted with metal detecting but when I heard someone one had found bullets on the property, I knew I had to ask if we could get permission to detect on the property. Fortunately for us they approved our request

My very first 3 ringer found in 2013

So the quest begins...

On a very warm and humid morning in early June 2013, my buddy and I headed to this area hoping to find our first Civil War relics. Did I really think we would find anything? The answer was no but we DID! We both ended up finding .69 cal 3 ringers also known as mini-balls. We also found some other items that could be potentially related but at the time we were focused on the task at hand which was finding Civil War bullets. The history didn't matter much until our most recent trip back to the property. (Click here to see the video of our return trip.)

Some of our finds from our first trip

When we finally got permission to go back I decided to look up the history behind the
viaduct and I was amazed at what I found. Wikipedia was probably where I found most of the facts about the viaduct but being armed with some basic knowledge about the place I was really hoping that we could find more artifacts related to the Civil War.

There was a lot of Union Troop activity all over that area back in those days but the only area of the property we found bullets was in the same area we found them the during our first visit. We believe that a few soldiers may have camped at this location. We ended up finding 2 additional bullets and 1 that appears to have been carved. Plus, we hit a bunch of relics associated to the property much later than the 1860s. We hope to make one more visit there at some point but we may knock on some other doors to get permission to detect in other areas to see if we can't find some more evidence of Civil War activity. When you pull up one of these bullets from 4" underground, you are holding a piece of history from about 150 years ago. Did the solider who lost the bullet survive the war? What was he like? Did he have a family? What did he think about the war? With all the crazy things happening in the world today I wonder what those soldiers would say today about the state of our country and world for that matter.

If you haven't checked out the latest video related to this location, please have a look and if you like it share with your friends and subscribe to the channel. In the meantime, here are some additional photos of our finds near the Thomas Viaduct.