Making memorys!!!!

relic nut · Oct 18, 2015

Making memory's!!!!

This is proof that good stuff is still there. I am tore up!!!!! Found my first (and probably only Cannonball today) Hunted a place today that I know has been pounded by the veterans of this hobby. (It is private land) We have been there once before and only found a little bit of lead. Today started out the same with a few bucky balls and one fired round ball. Then I found a flat button and a small eagle button. It is a cuff button with an eagle holding a anchor. I think this is a Union naval button, but can't explain what it is doing in a Confederate defensive position. This site has visible breast works and two Cannon in placements. I was hunting one of the breast works when I got a good, deep signal. After about 10" I new it was big,deep iron. At 18 + inches out popped this Cannonball. I'm getting the shakes just telling you about it. There are a lot of you who know how it feels. Its incredible!!!!! It weighs about 2 lbs and measures about 3 1/2 inches across. The fuse is gone. I would love to know what I have, Union/Confederate and what you can tell me about it. Sorry for rambling but I am beside myself. Picture heavy. Thanks, one happy Nut!!

Mell0w Sl0w · Oct 18, 2015

that would be like a life time achievement find for me!!! would love to dig that bad boy up!!!! congrats dude!! :thumbsup:

digging440yrs · Oct 18, 2015

Huge piece of history you found :occasion14:

VOL1266-X · Oct 18, 2015

Excellent find RN!! I'll email the Cannonball Guy & ask him to look at it. WTG, Q.

relic nut · Oct 18, 2015

VOL1266-X said:
Excellent find RN!! I'll email the Cannonball Guy & ask him to look at it. WTG, Q.

Thanks Bud, I'd love to know more about it. :thumbup:

RJ55 · Oct 18, 2015

Great find

kingskid1611 · Oct 18, 2015

Wow I would have given up at 15inches. That's incredible! Congrats!

relic nut · Oct 18, 2015

kingskid1611 said:
Wow I would have given up at 15inches. That's incredible! Congrats!

If I hadn't have been in the trench/breast work, I probably would have.

against the wind · Oct 18, 2015

Man, that's dedication. Eighteen inches is deep. I know you are probably using all metal settings, but which machine were you using? I'm guessing the Telekinetic 4000

relic nut · Oct 18, 2015

against the wind said:
Man, that's dedication. Eighteen inches is deep. I know you are probably using all metal settings, but which machine were you using? I'm guessing the Telekinetic 4000

ATP, wide open in pro zero. No discrimination. It was a good signal all the way but its a big target.

chrisdigs · Oct 18, 2015

Awesome cannon ball , I'd be tore up too. [emoji106]

TheCannonballGuy · Oct 18, 2015

My friend Quindy gave me a heads-up about your find, and said you wanted the correct ID for it, and more info about it.

It is a civil war era Bormann-fuzed shell for a 6-Pounder caliber smoothbore cannon. That cannon's bore diameter is 3.67 inches, and because it is a muzzleloading cannon, the ammunition for it is typically about 3.58 inches in diameter, a bit smaller than the bore diameter.

From before the American Revolution up to the American civil war, the 6-Pounder caliber smoothbore cannons were popular in Europe and the American Colonies because they were "lightweight" (easily move-able) cannons. But in the second year of the civil war, the yankee Ordnance Department decided the 6-Pounders were too puny in comparison to the new generation of artillery, called Rifled cannons, which were much more powerful and had longer range. So, in the Virginia theater of the war, yankee 6-Pounders had "gone away" by the summer of 1862. For example, no yankee 6-pounder cannonballs have been found at the Seven Days (Virginia) battlefields of June/July 1862.

That being said... the yankee army in Virginia shipped its 6-Pounder cannons off to the "Western" campaigns, where they were still being used by yankee artillerymen in 1863, at places like the Siege of Vicksburg (summer 1863).

The Confederates, however, even Lee's army in Virginia, were so "needy" of cannons that they held onto their 6-Pounder cannons through the end of the war. Many Confederate 6-Pounder cannonballs have been dug in the 1864-65 Richmond-to-Petersburg Siege Trenches.

So, depending on the date of the Virginia battlefield you found your 6-Pounder cannonball at, the odds highly favor it being a Confederate-made one. Unless it's from an 1861 or very-early-1862 Virginia battlefield, it's Confederate.

Your shell is missing its Bormann timefuze, a type first invented in Europe and imitated over here by the Yankees in the mid-1850s and by the Confederates in 1861-through-1863. It would not have been fired without its fuze (and the Bormann "support-plug" located under the fuze in the fuzehole), so a soldier must have taken it apart for the gunpowder and lead antipersonnel balls in it, and discarded its fuze and support-plug. Those two parts are probably laying somewhere nearby.

If you don't already know what a Bormann fuze looks like, here's a photo showing a Confederate-made one in a 6-Pounder caliber cannonball.