Civil War-era artifact turns out to be live explosive, Texas officials sayA man in South Texas had what he thought was a dummy Civil War-era ordnance in his home for years, but it turned out to be a live explosive, local officials said Tuesday. The Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office said the man called deputies just before 8 a.m. and told them that a military friend of his saw the artifact and suspected it was active. “The caller told deputies that he had owned the ordnance for years and had always thought it was a dummy round,” the sheriff’s office said in a social media post. The device was a live “parrot round,” the sheriff’s office wrote. It’s unclear how big the live round was.