A cold days hunt!

[arrowheadted]

Hers my finds from the battle of Nashville today. My friend hooked me up with a construction site on the battle of Nashville battlefield 1864. He works for a demolition company and they just took down a house. I could use some info about the fuse. Also some heavy silver too, my longest chain ever!
Merry Christmas to all!

 

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[goldkey]

That's a nice looking 24" chain there....and some other goodies also....Good finds!

Need any help searching that area......I'll see you in the morning!!!

 

[Jpro]

Hers my finds from the battle of Nashville today. My friend hooked me up with a construction site on the battle of Nashville battlefield 1864. He works for a demolition company and they just took down a house. I could use some info about the fuse. Also some heavy silver too, my longest chain ever!
Merry Christmas to all!

Nice..fuse is a hotchkiss..sometimes marked on the round lead on top. Use a loop to see if any writing..I've dug one with date etc..

 

[arrowhead82]

SWEET artillery fuse! also congrads on the silver. Wish I could get out to some of my sites but they're all covered in 4" of snow. lol
HH

 

[Msbeepbeep]

That is some hefty silver! Interesting finds! Glad you can detect that area before it's covered over by progress.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

You said "I could use some info about the fuze." It is a civil war era Percussion fuze... which means it was detonated by impact. The version you found was invented by Benjamin B. Hotchkiss and originally patented by him on June 17, 1862 -- but he modified it to the form you found in an "Improvement patent" on February 24, 1863. Thus, the specific version you found has only been dug at Spring-1863-and-later sites. It is strictly yankee-made.

The disc (called the "anvil-cap") in the center of your fuze's face has a different color of patina because it is made of a different brass-alloy than the fuze's main body. As Jpro mentioned, some Hotchkiss Percussion fuze anvil-caps were marked with the inventor's name and patent dates, but yours seems to be unmarked. I said "seems" because the marking was often not stamped into the brass very clearly. See photo below, which shows a somewhat weakly-stamped marking on a non-excavated specimen of the Hotchkiss Type-2 Percussion fuze. Notice that the word "patented" is unclear and only the "1863" portion of the second patent-date is visible.

 

[arrowheadted]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the comments. Jpro, I hope to return to this site soon. Cannon ball guy, thanks for the I depth info. I love to learn about the relics I dig up, I've only been at this a couple of years and still have a lot to learn. Merry Christmas to all and hope you all find something good this season.