Long before the Rio Hill Shopping Center opened in 1989, Civil War relic collectors had found Stuart’s winter camp and skirmish site at Rio Hill and used metal detectors to search the area. The artifacts they recovered included bullets, buttons, belt and harness buckles, shell fragments, camp equipment, and personal items. Among them were a Confederate officer’s two-piece “CS” belt buckle, a Virginia state seal button, Confederate block and script “I” infantry buttons, Union eagle buttons, a Vermont state seal button, part of a curry comb used to groom horses, an officer’s brass spur still retaining traces of its original gilt finish, a Bowie knife remnant, a hatchet, an artillery shell fragment, and a pocket watch case frame.