Hurricane Dorian Unearths Civil War Cannonballs at South Carolina Beach

In recent years, hurricanes have unearthed an array of unexpected finds: among others, a dugout canoe believed to be more than 100 years old, the remains of a 19th-century historic fort and a World War II-era gun mount. Now, Hurricane Dorian has added another discovery to the list. As Lillian Donahue reports for local news station WCSC, a couple exploring the shores of South Carolina’s Folly Beach in the aftermath of last week’s destructive storm chanced upon a pair of Civil War cannonballs buried near a pile of brush.
 

“At first, we just thought it was a rock,” Aaron Lattin, a South Carolinian who found the artillery with his girlfriend Alba, explains to WCSC. “[But] the more we got to looking, we realized it was something more than a rock.”

According to Donahue, the duo visited the beach in search of artifacts washed ashore during the hurricane. Lattin originally hoped to scour the area with a metal detector, but they discovered the 8-inch cannonball and a smaller 3-inch shell without the aid of any treasure-hunting tools: “We actually just got lucky with no equipment,” he adds, “just spending a day at the beach.”