Antietam gives up a tasty treat UPDATED Dentist opinion

[tymcmurray]

Civilman1 and I hit a section near Antietam that I had never been to before. Civilman got 4 bullets from the area last week. My Whites 6000 was down for the count so I used my Tesoro and dug EVERY hit. I came away with my first honest to goodness civil war bullet, but it wasn't what I expected. The bullet was a chewed bullet wit definite human teeth marks all over it. You can see the opening of the bullet was pinched shut.

After a 5+ hour hunt, we decided to go over to our Williamsport site. There I got another first. My very first artillery fragment. What a rush to see that big ole piece of iron come out of the dirt. First thing I did, once I realized I wasn't seeing things, was look for civilman to share the excitement. Then we opened a couple of cold ones and celebrated a little before hitting it again.

 

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[FrankTM]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

Awesome finds!

Frank

 

[Gribnitz]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

I would have thought that bullets would still be a fairly common find out that way being such a large battle. Those chewed bullets are controversial. I found a few myself and swore they look human, but most claim it is usually hog teeth that leave those human looking marks while they are rooting for chow.

 

[tymcmurray]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

I would have thought that bullets would still be a fairly common find out that way being such a large battle. Those chewed bullets are controversial. I found a few myself and swore they look human, but most claim it is usually hog teeth that leave those human looking marks while they are rooting for chow.

Hogs out here are non existent. No stories at all about soldiers eating hogs either back then either.

 

[cwdigger]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

Nice finds,congrat

 

[civilman1]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

NO HOG'S THIS TIME......Excellent dig's Ty and nice job on the Schrapnel.The location of this find and being the bloodiest day of the CW....Chewed for sure....Nice snag Ty.Human Teeth!!!!!

 

[tymcmurray]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

I came away with my first honest to goodness civil war bullet, but it wasn't what I expected. The bullet was a chewed bullet wit definite human teeth marks all over it. You can see the opening of the bullet was pinched shut.

Out of curiosity, here…your claim is the entire deformity of that bullet is caused by a human chewing it? Is there matching teeth marks on the reverse side as well?

uh...Yes.

 

[wirebender]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

I have some some dental investigations before, this doesn't appear to be typical human teeth marks. But perhaps the photos don't show it for me.

Dr. P, DDS, MS

 

[{Sentinel}]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

Wirebender the lead that Ty found does INDEED have human teeth marks in it. I have been Civil War relic hunting for a long time now and find these quite frequently. Have you ever heard the expression "bite the bullet"? Well this is where it comes from...from the Civil War. Surgeons would hand these out to patients to bite down on just before performing surgery usually to cut a limb off. In addition, soldiers in the field for whatever reason would get bored and chew on them. The point is, is that it is teeth marks and I have ALOT of it as well. Here is just a SMALL sampling of the many I have. Two of these were musketballs that were chewed on and if you notice the smaller one almost looks like he bit it and shaped it to fill a cavity in his molar.

 

[hollowpointred]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

soldiers also chewed bullets to produce saliva when water was short. that is most definitely true. whether or not these are human tooth marks i don't know, but it is entirely possible that they are. next time you go to the dentist bring it along to show the Doc! nice find by the way!

 

[tymcmurray]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasy treat

Wirebender the lead that Ty found does INDEED have human teeth marks in it. I have been Civil War relic hunting for a long time now and find these quite frequently. Have you ever heard the expression "bite the bullet"? Well this is where it comes from...from the Civil War. Surgeons would hand these out to patients to bite down on just before performing surgery usually to cut a limb off. In addition, soldiers in the field for whatever reason would get bored and chew on them. The point is, is that it is teeth marks and I have ALOT of it as well. Here is just a SMALL sampling of the many I have. Two of these were musketballs that were chewed on and if you notice the smaller one almost looks like he bit it and shaped it to fill a cavity in his molar.

Thanks for the information Sentinel. I've heard the stories to that affect before. I also have a musketball that looks to be chewed that I found last month.

soldiers also chewed bullets to produce saliva when water was short. that is most definitely true. whether or not these are human tooth marks i don't know, but it is entirely possible that they are. next time you go to the dentist bring it along to show the Doc! nice find by the way!

Interesting that you should bring that up, hollowpointred. Civilman1 mentioned the same thing. I grew up in the deserts of Arizona and Texas and we always carried a slobber stone (a small flat stone that we would put in our mouth to help produce saliva) around when running the deserts. I am Arapaho, and most of the Native Americans that I know in the deserts do the same thing. Some of the cowboys too.

 

[Ridley]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

Nice finds!

I'd love to find a chewed bullet like that. The artillery fragment rocks! Are you going to clean the fragment?



Congratulations, tymcmurray!



Ridley

 

[RON (PA)]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

Super find. Wow to hold that piece of history in your hand is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Kas]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

Nice finds. I've also read about not just hogs, but other animals chewing bullets.

It's entirely possible that they are human teeth marks, then again one will never know. At any rate, good find.

 

[tymcmurray]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

Nice finds!

I'd love to find a chewed bullet like that. The artillery fragment rocks! Are you going to clean the fragment?



Congratulations, tymcmurray!



Ridley

Yes, Ridley, I t has been in electrolysis since I took the photo yesterday. I'll post a photo when it's done. Thanks.

 

[TeddyB1967]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

Nice finds

Something else people should think about is most medical treatment began where the person was shot or injured. Bullets were available in the fields where leather straps may not have been. I can see where a soldier would shove a bullet in someones mouth to bite on while attending to the injury before transporting to a medical site. You use what you got on hand and while fighting, you dont have much except for bullets.

 

[BioProfessor]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

There was a pretty lengthy thread on human versus pig making the marks. It's good reading.

You say there are no hogs in the area. That may be true now but back in Civil War days, there were plenty of feral hogs everywhere. They weren't in confinement like they are today. They just roamed around looking for food. Hogs will eat anything. ANYTHING. During the civil war, sometimes all the bodies weren't removed and were feed upon by hogs. That probably didn't account for the bullets being chewed as they would not be that many. The bullets that missed and wound up in the dirt would have been picked up by the hogs as they rooted for roots, acorns, etc. They have the jaw strength to cause the marks very easily and would have chewed anything they picked up. The common view (and that of dentists like the one in this thread) is that the marks are not human.

In the few instances when anesthesia was not available (it was widely used and available in most every field hospital), leather belts, folded up cloth, and straps were always available. Choking on a bullet would have been just as fatal as being shot with one. Not a good thing to put in the mouth of a person out of their mind with pain.

As far as "bite the bullet" goes, that goes back to when the cartridges and powder were in a paper wrapper. The bullet was lubricated with lard. When these were used in India by the British, the Muslims were not allowed to have the pork product touch their lips and they had to avoid the lard as much as possible. Sometimes they were rushed and they mistakenly "bit the bullet" to quickly their rifles during a fire fight.

As far as chewing bullets, soldiers most likely did. Either for saliva or just as a habit. That would cause tooth marks and there may have been contest to see who could soften it up and make the best bite. So there could be some with human marks but more than 99% of the time the marks are from hogs in the area at the time.

Daryl

 

[possumheaded]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

Well put BioProfessor. I agree it was good reading. Although it is possible that some could be from human chewing, this thing has been through the ringer. Whether it is or not, who knows. I'm not a dentist. In support of it, I know in my younger days before I found out what lead poisoning was all about, I left my fair share of teeth marks in lead weights used for fishing. Not from chewing on them but from using my teeth instead of pliers to secure them to the line and I imagine if I had spent any length of time chewing on them I suppose one might be as chewed up looking as this bullet. Anyway you look at it, it's still a cool find.
Congrats on your find tymcmurray!!
Ed

 

[BioProfessor]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

I agree. It is a cool find. Always nice to find something that leads to a "discussion." And any time you find civil war relics, you've got to be stoked.

I put my share of tooth marks in sinkers as well. Could it be human, yes. Is it human? The dentist says no. To put that much of mark, you have to have really strong jaw muscles and teeth. Want to really see the difference between a pig's ability to chew stuff and a human's? "Challenge" one to a dried field corn eating contest. Make sure you dental insurance is paid up.

Good find and good post. A challenge is always good.

Daryl

 

[Demrok]

Re: Antietam gives up a tasty treat

To put that much of mark, you have to have really strong jaw muscles and teeth.

I was going to say the same thing. Human jaw can't put enough pressure
But I am sure that people did bite on them at one time or another for whatever the reason