JACKSONVILLE, Ill. (WAND)- A Jacksonville man was tilling his garden when his tiller struck a unknown metal object.
Bob Anderson was tilling his garden in the 1500 block of West Lafayette Street in Jacksonville when he came across a foreign object and recognized it as a bayonet of the type that may have been used in the Civil War.
The bayonet is believed to be in connection to Ulysses S. Grant's March to join the Civil War.
Grant's March took place in July 1861, when he lead 1,000 soldiers from Illinois to the Civil War battlefields.
"Although we can't conclusively prove the bayonet came from a Grant's March participant, it's the same type carried by Union soldiers and was found just a few hundred feet from the site of Grant's July 5, 1861 encampment," said Jacksonville Area Museum Board Chairman David Blanchette. "It isn't hard to imagine a soldier who was being rushed off to war accidentally leaving it behind when the 21st Illinois left its overnight camp on the way to the Mississippi River."
Anderson has donated the rusted but intact item to the Jacksonville Area Museum.
Starting Tuesday, March 30, the bayonet will be displayed at Market House Antiques, 226 E. State Street in Jacksonville, on Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Jacksonville Area Museum will officially open in mid-2021 in the old Post Office Building in the 300 block of East State Street.
