Brass pieces and civil war projectile?

[Cold Digger]

On the left is a lead cap? Then a brass piece, brass strip in the middle, 2 three ringers and I believe a sharps and a spent cartridge. On the right is a iron piece I think may be part of a case shot or something. It has a copper ring around the bottom. It's approx 2 and 3/4 " in diameter. It's in pretty bad shape. Not sure if I'm close or way off on these. Dug at a CW site in Louisiana. Thanks

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Your guess is correct, it is a partially exploded civil war artillery projectile. Specifically, it is a 2.9"-caliber US Parrott shell, with the Army version of brass ring-sabot encircling its base. (The Navy version of Mr. Parrott's brass ring-sabot was "wider.")

The particular version of Parrott shell you found did not get used in combat until Spring 1863. Therefore, the combat yours is from must have happened sometime between Spring 1863 and 1865.

When a civil war cast-iron shell was exploded by its fuze, it broke into many fragments. The fact that yours is broken almost exactly in half suggests that it is an unfired one which was in an ammo-chest that got hit by an enemy shell and blew up. That makes it a very rare find, even though 2.9"-caliber US Parrott shells are not a rare type of civil war artillery projectile.

 

[DigIron2]

very nice find

 

[Cold Digger]

New pictures

 

[Cold Digger]

Few new pictures

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Thank you for making and posting the additional photos. They confirm my previous estimation that it is a 2.9"-caliber US Parrott shell. The photos also seem to show no cannon rifling-marks on the brass ring-sabot, which ought to be obvious if it was a fired one. (The 2.9"-caliber Parrott rifled cannon had three wide, deep rifling-grooves, which almost always made very distinct marks on the projectile's sabot.) So, I'm sticking with my guess that your "half-of-a-shell" was in an ammo chest that got hit with an enemy shell and blew up, fracturing your shell in half. (As I said previously, when a shell blows up "from the inside" its body fractures into multiple fragments, not just into halves like you broke the shell over your knee.)