Maryland Bomb Squad Detonates Civil War Cannonball

The United States has a rich history, despite our relatively short time as a nation, and much of our story is blood and brutal.

This is a nation carved from conflict, from the very first pilgrim to set foot, through the Revolutionary and Civil wars, and through the plains to the saloons of the old west.  America has long been a violent place, and we are experiencing the effects of this still today…both figuratively and literally.

In Maryland, a very literal reminder of our past troubles was discovered and subsequently detonated.

A bomb squad safely deactivated a live Civil War-era piece of ammunition after it was discovered in Maryland last week.

A homeowner contacted the state’s fire marshal after being given what seemed to be an unexploded cannonball that a family member found near the Monocacy Battlefield in Frederick, about 50 miles west of Baltimore. Officials confirmed that the explosive was live.

Bomb technicians moved the cannonball to Beaver Creek Quarry in Hagerstown, where they conducted “an emergency disposal,” according to the Maryland State Fire Marshal.

And if you thought that this may have been overkill, you’d be dead wrong.

In 2008, a man who collected Civil War relics died after a cannonball he was attempting to restore exploded. The next year a Pennsylvania man was charged after accidentally firing a 2-pound cannonball into his neighbor’s home. No one was injured in that incident.

Authorities insist that these devices pose the same amount of risk to people finding them today as they did on the day that they were manufactured, and they ask anyone who discovers such an object to reach out to local law enforcement.