A Sharpsburg man planting trees at his Powell Road home Thursday unearthed a live Civil War-era shell that authorities later disposed of by setting it off at a neighboring farm.

“When I saw it I knew what it was,” J.D. Taylor Jr. said. “It was the second one I found here.
“It was some kind of experience.”

Taylor said he at first thought he hit a rock with his steel shovel while digging in his yard about a mile from Antietam National Battlefield sometime between 8:30 to 9 a.m.

He pushed the shovel under the object, which was five or six inches deep, and knelt to pry it out....