An unexploded Civil War-era cannonball was detonated by a state law enforcement bomb squad after it was given to a Frederick, Maryland homeowner by a family member who found it near the Monocacy Battlefield, NBC News reports.
Authorities took it to the Beaver Creek Quarry in Hagerstown where bomb technicians conducted “an emergency disposal,” according to the Maryland state fire marshal.
“As proven today, the finding of military ordnance from the Civil War is not uncommon in Maryland, and these devices pose the same threat as the day they were initially manufactured,” the fire marshal’s office said.