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Best friend.d he followed me m arounde like a puppy. helped me carry dry wall to a construction site. he sat on the beach with my children while my wife and i d a went surfing.w he kept asking "can i see the artifacts?" >> ed finally fam agrees to shoh pritchard what's inside that old family suitcase. the next few hours are a revelation for ed. that old cap is called a keppie and it was worn a by general , pickett at gettysburg. there's his bloodstained uniform sleeve, personal letters, photos, his military sash and wn this, pickett's own hand-drawn map of the gettysburg battlefield. >> he was...

Territory. was that the high watermark? >> that's the high watermark.cy from that point on the fortunesa of the confederacy started to o wane. rolina >> just knowing that pickett's d charge is a disaster for ed imr charge is a disaster for ed imr the 1960s. eres >> i had other interests that seemed to be more important to me at the time. >> heold certainly has no inter in this old suitcase of familiary loom family a heirlooms that his familye his inherited. when his parentse to divorced hv father passed it to his mother a with instructions to hold on to it for ed.o tak this is the actual case?...

>> three years later in the summer of 1998, ed accepts an invitation to a dinner and he's introduced to historian earl coates. >> i knew he was an expert in clothing. i asked him how much would a keppie be worth. >> it stunned me. i said "you mean the general's?" he said "yeah." whoa. >> and of course at that moment the room got very silent. he said "well, it could be worth a lot of money, $200,000, $250,000" just for the keppie alone. i said "that's more than i got for everything. >> but ed doesn't want to believe he's been swindled. he considers russ pritchard a friend. >> you trusted him so...

"there's this legacy you have. it's going to be yours one day.p and i would become b like, yeah, okay, can i go outside and playb >> whether he appreciates it or not, ed takes possession of the suitcase in the early '90s. it's his by family tradition at the first born pickett male. a after his 70-year-old mother used into an assisted living t facility. she warns her son to remove it e from the family home before ot someone steals it. t o >> i gotut it out of the closeti no didn't take the time right awayt to look through it.nd kind of opened it, looked at it and went, oh, okay, and closed e it...

The civil war collecting world m rumors spread that a metal case full of general pickett epte artifacts is still in the family's possession in north m carolina. in september, 1995, ed gets a call from a guy named russell h pritchard in philadelphia. pritchard says he's an antiquesa appraiser looking for artifacts to buy for a new civil war ndof museum being built in be harrisburg, pennsylvania. >> i was a little bit standoffish because i didn't believe him. may >> a few weeks later, a letter p arrives. >> i had ard letter from the mau of harrisburg. saying?isburg. >> russ pritchard is the offi...