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For the past 75 years, we have always prided ourselves on one thing: commitment to our patients. At Beltone, you always get more: • Award-winning technology with legendary Beltone sound • Exclusive BelCare ™ lifetime care program • Free annual hearing evaluations • 2-year hearing loss change protection • And, so much more! , Call TODAY for your appointment. hearing screening & in-offi ce trial Hearing Aids starting at Expires Oct. 31, 2018 * 200 Progress Ave | Siloam Springs, AR 72761 (479) 524-6605 BRANDS WE CARRY • KHS • Terra Trikes • Haro • Catrikes • Masi • Ice Trikes • Del Sol • Bacchetta Recumbents A partner in the great outdoors—— Dogwood Junction and Siloam Springs is your ticket to outdoor fun!!!! chetta Recumbents RELICS Continued from Page 1C surrounded by Civil War sites, it was only natural for Salley to develop an interest in the past. He has always loved history, especially military history, as well as museums and relics. "The Civil War was the military history of that area, there's nothing else," Salley said. He spent 23 years work - ing in law enforcement, as an international cop in places such as Kosovo as well as a detective in Mississippi and a school resource officer in Siloam Springs. He purchased City Barbershop, the longest continuously operating barbershop in the state, about 12 years ago. "I love law enforcement," Salley said. "I loved work - ing in the schools, loved working with the kids." The highlight of his ca- reer was not the time he spent as an international police officer or working as a detective, it was working with students in the Siloam Springs School District, he said. However, between his job at the police depart - ment, running the barber- shop and teaching law en- forcement classes to other agencies, he was working 60 to 70 hours a week. "I was just working too much," he said. "Once I qualified with the state to retire it made sense." It was only about two and a half years ago — or about a year before he re - tired — that he began met- al detecting and searching for Civil War relics. "I think, between the police department, the school, the barbershop, my teaching that I traveled and did, I worked a lot," Salley said. "I figured I didn't re - ally have much of a hobby, you know spending time with my family, which I love. I wanted a hobby." Salley watched some YouTube videos about metal detecting and re - searched what types of equipment he should buy. The property owned by his wife Brooke's parents is in Vicksburg, right where the siege occurred, making it a natural place to begin searching. "I went out there hoping to find a bullet," he said. "If I was really lucky I was go - ing to find a bullet, and it kind of turned into more." It actually turned into a lot more. The items Salley has found on the prop- erty include hundreds of Minie ball bullets, buttons, buckles from saddles and horse tack, metal plates from Confederate and Union equipment such as cartridge boxes or swords, pieces of jewelry and watches, bayonets, explod - ed pieces of large and small artillery shells, and one live canon ball, which he had professionally demilled. Some of the items, such as an engraved sterling silver spoon, date back to the Civil War but are not necessarily from the war. Other items are more re - lated to the everyday life of a soldier, such as harmon- ica reeds, pocket knives, game pieces and pencils fashioned from metal bul- lets, heel plates from boots and even a glass medicine bottle, engraved with the address of the pharmacy where it was prescribed in Vicksburg. People back then didn't have a lot and what they had wasn't easily replace - able, Salley said, holding an old clay pipe. "When you lost your pipe, it probably ruined your day," he said with a laugh. Connecting the past with the present Salley does not search on battlefields or protect- ed areas and is careful to hunt for relics on private property owned by his family. "I detect really old home sights or really old Civil War camps if I can, any locations that have his - toric significance that I find interesting, that's the kind of detecting I like to do," Salley said. "It's kind of cool for me because when I was a cop for years I got to investigate things and study, and you know, you're researching and chasing down leads and you get to do that stuff, and so with this, now that I'm retired, I still do tons of research. "I read old official re - ports and study old maps. I'll find old letters that a soldier may have written home saying 'Hey mom, this is where we're camped, and this is our location,' and then if I can link it to the place that my family has there or figure out what he's talking about and then go through the woods and see if I can find where they are camped, and I've been really, really fortunate to find a lot of camps." For every hour that he spends digging, he esti - mated that he spends 10 or 12 hours researching. More than once, that research has paid off. "I go to the woods and this terrain is so hilly and it's pretty difficult to get through, you're talking the Mississippi Delta, which is full of cane breaks and these huge bluffs. So I climb and whatever, and then I get there and some - times I strike out and there is nothing, and other times I hit the jackpot," Salley said. Salley had family that fought on both sides of the war and he was able to find records of a family member that fought in the 30th Mis - sissippi Infantry and was stationed on his in-law's property. He used letters from the soldier to find the campsite. "It takes me well over an hour, so I'm climbing and what have you, and as I'm coming up the side of this bluff, I look in front of me and I see the rifle pits still dug," Salley said. "I find we're in the side of this bluff, it's cut out where I think, 'Man, this was a can - on emplacement,' and it was. I found artillery relics there. Now it's grown up, there are trees growing out of the old rifle pits, but 100 percent that's where I am. That's an awesome feeling, just being able to go back to where I know that my family was, or where these guys were and where they camped. It's super cool to me. Then when I dig it. … when I find something, it's awesome." Uncovering history The research is only be- ginning when Salley finds an object. He puts even more hours into finding what the object was and tracking down the history behind it. One of Salley's rarest finds is a solid brass sword handle he discovered pok - ing out of the ground. The sword handle is pat- terned after a standard U.S. Cavalry sword, but unlike a standard sword, which had a wooden handle wrapped in leather, covered in wire, with a few brass pieces, the sword he found is solid brass. "Lots of Confederates went to war with what they could find," he said. "Well, this is one solid piece of brass. I have looked and Chris Salley holds a British Royal Navy captain's button from the War of 1812 that he found in a field in southwest Missouri, just north of Pea Ridge. Chris Salley holds a Union officer's ring he found in Vicksburg, Miss. Chris Salley holds a rare solid brass sword handle he discovered sticking out of the ground in Vicksburg, Miss. Photos by Janelle Jessen / Herald-Leader See RELICS on Page 5C