Another Civil War casualty

[JägerMartin]

I thought the cannon ball had to have fire from the powder blast or you have to light it with a match to make it blow?

Me too, didn't realise cannol balls contained explosive, I thought they were just solid

[Simon O.]

Hi Rick, I am curious, I always hear from Europe when people are digging and find shells etc. that they rebury them. Is there not a program to call a bomb disposal unit for these finds rather than put it back in the ground. The possibility for someone else to find the shell who may not be as smart as you who leaves it alone, they do the less smart thing and take it for a collection with fatal consequences.
Regards,
Bill

Rick is right. Ordnance gets re-buried if it's been dug up by someone that shouldn't be digging in the first place. Or if it's by a land owner that fears damage or something to his property. Or having to stop work whilst the EOD guys do their thing, ie. losing money.

All the countries here have EOD people and systems for dealing with the never ending amount of 20th century ordnance littering the place.

[Bill Gaynor]

Rick and Simon,
Thanks for your response, answers my question.
Regards,
Bill

[AndrewK]

Me too, didn't realise cannol balls contained explosive, I thought they were just solid

Some were solid. Others were filled with powder to explode. Exploding shells had been around for a long time, but they really gained prominence during the Civil War. Here's a useful site.

http://www.civilwarartillery.com/pro...al/default.htm

[Doug Kenwright]

Can you imagine the amount of energy that it would take to propel a solid shot cannonball across a great distance, so that when it arrived, it would impart enough kinetic energy to snap a main mast in half.One that could be 3ft. in diam.?

[Nicholas Link]

Just the other day there was an article on Yahoo news about an old lady who'd been using an artillery round dating from WW 1, as a door stop. From the way it was described, it sounds like it was a 75mm round. The Michigan state police bomb squad had to take it out and blow it up.

[Bill Gaynor]

Me too, didn't realise cannol balls contained explosive, I thought they were just solid

In the movie "The Last Of The Mohicans" there is a scene where the French are bombarding an English Fort with mortars, they light a fuse on the cannon ball then fire the gun. The fuse is timed I guess based on length so it explodes somewhere close to the target. In the movies they all hit and explode, in real life I am sure there were alot of duds, thats why so many are found, and air bursts since they may go off before hitting the target. If you get enough out there I guess your bound to get a few right.

[AndrewK]

By the Civil War there were many types of fuses. The two major types for spherical projectiles were paper fuses (with powder in them) put inside a fuse plug, which was then places in the fuse hole of the shell, and the Bormann time fuse (http://www.civilwarartillery.com/fuzes/bormannfuze.htm). There is a good book out about Civil War artillery fuses that I've wanted to get for a while.

[colt45s]

the high water mark, Gettysburg had 4 horses lined up eating grass when a cannon ball went thru all 4 bellies

[AndrewK]

the high water mark, Gettysburg had 4 horses lined up eating grass when a cannon ball went thru all 4 bellies

I believe it. Has anybody seen the episode where they fire a cannonball through a line of dead pigs?