Confederate 6-pounder Mallet Polygonal Cavity Shell

D

Dr. Beach

Established Users
Hello to All on this Saturday from the Rainy west coast! A bit of a puzzler here with a number of embedded questions.

I’ve recently come across a Confederate 6-pounder Mallet Polygonal Cavity Shell (which used a wood adapter for paper time fuse) that according to its former owner was identified as a polygonal by Jack Melton and Keith Kenerle. Here my questions begin: I assume that the attribution of a polygonal is correct, but what if I wanted to confirm this for myself? Other than breaking it open or subjecting it to X-rays, how could this be done? If I could get some type of fiber optic scope into the fuse hole would I see any evidence of segmentation? Theoretically, could I feel any lines of division were I to get a finger into the fuse hole and feel around? Now, this shell was supposed to have been recovered Port Hudson, Louisiana--but per D&G, p. 30, this “shell . . . was only used in 1864-65 Deep South campaigns.” Have any of you seen polygonal shells come out of the Port Hudson area? If so, what would account for this? I assume Port Hudson is a much chronologically “contaminated” site. Could this shell have been part of a Federal storage for captured Confederate ammunition--I mean, was Port Hudson used by the Federals in that way? Pete, et al., what do y’all think about all of this?
 
My method of determining if a shell is a polygonal cavity one or not is to take my pinkie finger and run it around the inside to feel for the lines. It works for me, but if your hands are too big, get a kid or woman to do it for you.

There were 24pdr polygonal shells made at the Selma Arsenal for sure. Much of the ordnance from Selma made its way to Port Hudson including that "peterhead" Archer fuse I showed a couple weeks back.
 
My primary method of determining whether or not a roundball has a polygonal cavity is the same as Emike's - feeling around inside it with my smallest finger.

My secondary method is to weigh it. The Dickey-&-George book gives precise weights (pounds AND ounces) for most of the shells pictured in it.

For the 6-pounder size Polygonal, a wood-fuzed empty one weighs 3 pounds 12 ounces. For comparison, here's a "chart layout" of the statistics:
3 lb 12 oz - CS 6-pdr Polycav (empty)
4 lb 02 oz - US 6-pdr Bormann-fuzed common-shell (zinc fuze)
4 lb 09 oz - CS 6-pdr sideloader case-shot (copper fuze, iron case-shot balls)
5 lb "plus" - US Bormann-fuzed case-shot (weight varies by the quantity of lead balls enclosed)

Now, about where 6-pounder Polygonals are dug... I know of only three locations, but there are almost certainly a few more that I haven't heard about. The three are the Alabama River at Selma, West Point Georgia, and Olley's Creek - near Marietta Georgia.

Regarding Port Hudson... I dug there extensively back in the good ol' days. So did Tom Dickey. As far as I know, both he and I never dug a 6-pdr Polycav there. Nor have I heard any report of one being found (as the book indicates). However, I did dig some 12-pdr Polycavs at Port Hudson ...so I can't say it's impossible for a 6-pdr Polycav to have been dug there in the 13 years since I wrote the 1993 book-update. I'll check with one other still-living oldtime Port Hudson shell-superhunter (John Sexton) to see if he knows of any being found there.

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]
 
Thanks eMike and Pete--

Sticking my little finger into the fuse hole as far as it could go (deeper than one knuckle I could not go, as I had terrible thoughts of a call to the fire department explaining why a cannon ball was stuck on my finger!), I could only feel the tiniest bit of the neck of the shell just inside the fuse hole. I could feel some sort of irregularities at different points on the compass, but I’m not sure what to make of that. Lacking a decent scale or a volunteer with smaller fingers, I’m going to see if I can literally shed more light on the matter. I saw a skinny fiber-optic flashlight attachment at a hardware store earlier today. If it casts a diffuse light (as opposed to laser point), maybe I could stick it down the fuse hole, and leaving just enough room, I could peer down the hole while the shell is thus illuminated from within. I’ll let y’all know the results of my experiment (if I decide it worth running). In the meantime, yes, please let me know of any reports of polygonal shells out of Port Hudson.
 
Well, I now doubt that the shell is a polygonal. Inserting light into the shell in all different ways, nothing stands out while peeking inside. I thought of investing in a borescope that plumbers use, but I couldn’t justify the expense. I even toyed with the idea of bringing the shell to the post office or grocery store to weigh it (but again my imagination got the best of me: “price check on aisle seven for a Confederate shell!”). I tried the pencil method mentioned below, but either there are no ridges within, or my fingers are just not sensitive enough to discern ridges from normal bumps and irregularities. So finally, I decided to write the source of the shells supposed attribution. As you will all see below, Mr. Melton cannot support the identification as a polygonal either--and I doubt that whoever took the time to hand label the shell mislabeled it as “Pt Hudson.” Unless any of you out there can tell me that 6-pounder polygonal shells have been found at Port Hudson, I must conclude this shell is not one. With this, baring any new information, my Port Hudson polygonal quest has ended. Here is Jack Melton’s reply from this morning:

"Hello Horace,

I remember the shell but don't remember saying it was a polygonal cavity. The shell came from Hugh Jenkins of Augusta, GA, and I bought it from him in 1988.  Try taking a pencil or something similar in diameter and probe inside the ball.  A polygonal cavity will be easy to determine. My guess is the shell might have been misidentified because I don't know of any polygonal cavity shells coming from Port Hudson.  They did come from Mobile, AL.
If the Federals used Port Hudson as a storage area I am not aware of any information that supports that idea. Hopefully this will help,

Jack"
 
Bummer!

Horace:

I will begin to question your sanity if you ever walk into a Post Office with an artillery shell in hand and ask them to weigh it. Somehow I think they aren't as enlightened about these things as the rest of us on this board.

Reminds me of a story...

After my Grandfather died, my mom took his old .22 rifle and an inert hand grenade he had "down town" to turn them into the police station in their small SC town. She walked right in the front door with one in each hand, in plain sight. Seeing her coming, the policeman dove behind his desk, fearing this little old lady was going to take him out like Fort Apache, the Bronx or some such.

This was well before 9/11, otherwise I might not remember this as being a humorous tale with a happy ending. Still, it makes you wonder about that old adage, "Mother knows best."
 
HA! :lol: Thanks eMike for the story. The postal scale would have been self-service! (but don't worry, twas all in my fantasy!--as would have been in the grocery store, as some woman would have told me that my avocado was not ripe enough).
 
Emike said to Dr. Beach:
"I will begin to question your sanity if you ever walk into a Post Office with an artillery shell in hand and ask them to weigh it."

Uh-oh. Well, the following report will either increase or decrease my Intellectual reputation. ;-)

I've taken an artillery shell into a Post Office for extra-precise weighing, many times. I took the precaution of rolling it in a bit of brown wrapping-paper (not enough to affect it's weight). If anyone asked, I'd say it's an iron casting - which is the truth. But no-one has ever asked.

Dr. Beach (and anyone else who is interested), here's some additional info about my finger-test method for distinguishing a Polygonal Cavity roundball...

A dug shell will often contain a lot of concreted powder and dirt, which of course makes it difficult to tell whether its cavity is round or polygonal. So, if the concretion can't be flushed out completely, when I insert my smallest finger through the fuzehole, I feel around not only for a polygonal cavity's flat plates but also for "deep corners."

I'll explain the term "deep corner." Look at the room you're sitting in now. Where one wall meets another wall is a "shallow corner." Where two walls meet the ceiling is a "deep corner."

Even if you can't get your smallest finger deep enough into the roundball's cavity to feel down to its side-walls, you should still be able to feel its "ceiling" and locate a couple of its "deep corners" - if it has any.

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]
 
By the way:
Apparently, whoever sold Dr. Beach the 6-pounder shell claimed Jack Melton had certified its identification as a polygonal shell. I'm VERY pleased to hear Dr. Beach contacted Jack Melton directly for confirmation of that claim. Why am I so pleased? Because, quite a few times over the years, collectors have come to me with a relic that some Seller is claiming *I* certified - but the claim is incorrect! For example, last week an E-Bay seller was claiming I dug the fired-AND-carved Whitworth bullet he is selling. But I didn't dig it. I remember owning that particularly unusual Whitworth bullet, and around 15 years ago I sold it to somebody - but I definitely did NOT say I dug it myself. Ain't it funny how a relic's history can ...ummm ..."evolve" over the years as it passes from seller to seller? :-(

My point is:
Guys, if the relic is a valuable one, please ALWAYS check it directly with whatever "big name" expert who the Seller claims had certified it in the past. Sometimes a Seller's claim is not correct. ;-)

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]
 
Ha, Pete, as long as you are brown bagging it, tell those fine Civil Servants its a bottle of Thunderbird! You are only crazy if you plunk it down on the counter in plain view (the bigger and dirtier the better) and say loudly so the customers hear you too, "can you weigh this bomb?"

I tried the honest approach once, but I live in Illinois now where nobody has heard of a CW projectile. I had a CS sideloader that was dropped and had never had a fuse. But the threads were funky from rust so I naively asked a guy at a shade tree machine shop to use his tap to get it threaded to accept a nice fuse I had.

Here's the weird part, he was happy to clean out the shell with his power tools, but he made me take the hollow copper fuse adapter outside while he did it. No matter I told him it was completely inert, he didn't want the "fuse" anywhere near the shell while he was working on it!
 
Thanks again Pete, EMike, JimmyK, et al. Pete, I like your “deep corners” analogy--helps to articulate what I was intuitively feeling for. The hard thing about the inspection of this little shell is its tapered (inward) fuse hole that won’t allow enough of my little finger to properly feel inside. As I wrote, I don’t think it is a polygonal now--but again, if anyone out there tells me that 6-pounder polygonals have been found at Port Hudson, I will reactivate a more intensive investigation/probing of the shell at once.
 
Horace:
Only my great respect for you caused me to search for and photograph this polygonal fragment at midnight local time. As you can see there just happens to be a fuse hole in my fragment. My suggestion would be to take a paper clip and make a loop in it a little more than 0.3 inch (distance to first polygon edge) and slowly move it around the edge of the fuse hole. The polygon at the fuse hole is 90 degrees to the axis of the hole. The hole is 1 inch deep. If you make a complete circle at the fuse hole with the paper clip then it is not polygonal but if you encounter an edge in making the circle then it is probably polygonal.

Hope this helps.

Nemo
 
Thank you my night-owl friend! I'll try it and see what I encounter--although, if my sense memory is correct, when I got the smallest tip of my finger just inside the bottom of the hole I felt some kind of irregularities at different points on the compass--I don’t think these could be due to a polygonal cavity. I guess I would have more confidence if I knew whether any of these had been found at Port Hudson.
 
Hello Nemo, et al.:

Well, I tried the Nemo paper-clip method--alas, no luck. Just inside the fuse hole there seems to be casting irregularities (like ridges or bumps/globs of iron)--in other words, few "flat surface at [the] bottom of [the] fuse hole" making it impossible to navigate the paper-clip without hitting a bump. I just have to believe that if this were a polygonal shell, then whoever took the time to label it in white painted letters would have so written--and still, no reports of 6-pounder polygonals found at Port Hudson.
 
Doctor, has that 6-pounder's fuzehole been TOTALLY cleaned out, or does it still have a layer of rust-concretion on the fuzehole's walls? (Similar to arterial plaque.)

If it has been totally cleaned out:
What is the diameter of the fuzehole at its upper and lower ends? (I'm assuming you have a set of calipers.)

Does the shell show a mold-seam anywhere? (And if so, does the seam run toward the fuzehole or around the shell's "equator"?

I'm asking these questions because the fuzehole's (original) size and the moldseam's "orientation" can sometimes be useful clues for determining the item's identity.

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]
 
Good Day Pete, et al.:

The shell was not completely reamed-out, but the fuse hole seems to be clean. I measured the fuse hole using my calipers: approximately .895 on the outside, tapering to .670 on the inside. The shell has a mold seam that if the fuse hole were the North Pole, the seam would be the equator. I now doubt seriously that this is a polygonal shell, but do the fuse hole dimensions and mold seam tell you something?
 
Thanks for taking the time to provide the info. Yes, the fuzehole's size and mold-seam's orientation can tell us something important.

With roundball shells, a mold-seam that connects to the fuzehole indicates pre-war manufacture. Also, mortar-shells and grenades tend to have a smaller fuzehole than cannonballs.

You may have read the story of a Confederate Secret Agent's sabotage detonation of a yankee Ammunition ship at the City Point (VA) supply-docks during the Petersburg Siege. Divers recovered a number of what was presumed to be wooden-fuze 6-pounder cannonshells from that site.

That struck me as odd, because the yankees were definitely NOT using any 6-pounder cannons in Virginia in 1864. Also, the yankees discontinued manufacturing any wooden-fuzed FIELD ARTILLERY shells after 1860.

Furthermore, the mold-seam on those City Point 6-pounder roundball shells ran through the fuzehole ...and the fuzehole was smaller than normal for a 6-pounder shell. Also, I noticed the shells were significantly lighter than a normal 6-pounder shell.

So, some diligent research was conducted. The City Point 6-pounders turned out to be Mexican War era US-made Naval grenades. Apparently somebody up north discovered some leftovers still in storage from that era, and sent them to Grant's army for use in the Petersburg siege-trenches. (It is known that both Confederate Rains grenades and yankee Ketchum grenades were also used there.)

So I figured I should check with you to see if your 6-pounder shell might have been a Mexican War grenade - possibly a Confederate response to the yankees' use of Ketchum grenades at the siege of Port Hudson. (I have read wartime reports of the Confederates specifically using artillery shells as grenades during yankee attacks on the siege-trenches there.)

A sidenote:
I own a 6-pounder size (3.58"-diameter) polygonal cavity roundball which was found at Selma. I refer to it only as "a roundball" because its fuzehole:
is uncommonly small (.77-inch),
is THREADED,
is only .60-inch deep,
and has no "recess" at the top to accept a metal fuzeplug's lip.
There is no known CS artillery-shell fuze which would fit the fuzehole of this 6-pounder Polycav. So I strongly suspect it was manufactured to be a grenade. (Hmm... I hope SelmaHunter is reading this thread.)

Now, back to the main subject:
Doctor Beach, is it possible to "backtrack" your Siege Of Port Hudson 6-pounder to its finder ...and ask him whether it was dug in the CS lines or the US lines? I am not aware of the yankees using any 6-pounder cannons at the siege of Port Hudson. So, all things considered, I think your 6-pounder shell was "most likely" to have been used as a grenade (by the Confederates) there.

Regards,
Pete [PCGeorge]
 
Thanks Pete, as always, for your thoughtful reply. It is interesting that it may have also been used as a grenade. I discussed the use of 6-pounders for that purpose back in March 2005 in a thread entitiled,“1758 Seven Years War Hand Grenades”:

As to who dug this shell I cannot determine, but “The Official Atlas of the Civil War,” by Thomas Yoseloff, lists only one battery of six Federal 6-pounders at the siege of Port Hudson--and they were of the Sawyer-rifled type and would not have used spherical projectiles. The only other Federal 6-pounder possibilities at Port Hudson, according to other records, would have been the 12th Mass. Artillery of Lt. Chamberlin (which had three “6-pounder guns”--unknown type) and the 21st Indiana Battery (which had three CAPTURED 6-pounders from the Battle of Baton Rouge). This leads to the conclusion that, at best, the Federal forces at Port Hudson, before, during, and after the siege, had six 6-pounders (smoothbores). This compared to at LEAST 28 Confederate 6-pounders (3.67” smoothbores), figured according to various records.
 
Horace, I just today received from a good friend.... a copy of Series I Vol. 34, Part II Correspondence concerning the Red River Campaign and the Camden, Ar. Expedition.

Now, this is the first time I have ever read a volume of the OR's like this... so, I'm unsure as to which side (US or CS) I was reading concerning the condition of the artillery on the outer works at Port Hudson. It is on page 96 of this volume.

It appears to be addressed to Brigadier-General Andrews, Commanding Post, from W. S. Trask, Lieutenant, Acting Ordnance Officer. Trask lists the Guns and Equipment of each battery.... their conditions and states of repair. 12 pound Howitzers, Two "light" 12 pounder guns, 24 pounder guns (rifled), a nine inch Dahlgren, a 6 pounder gun, a 24 pounder howitzer...... etc. are all discussed as they appear with each battery's position.

Their is also correspondence on page 124: addressed to a Maj. George B. Drake, from a Brig. Gen. Richard Arnold, Chief of Artillery., Dept. of the Gulf. It appears a reorganization of the 19th Army Corp is being enacted.... and the Companies and batteries are being reorganized as to the artillery they are to have....... Port Hudson included..... this is the correspondence that you just cited concerning the 12th Mass. Battery and the 2nd Vermont..... the first having the 3-6 pounder guns and one 12 pounder howitzer, and the latter having the 6-pounder Sawyers.

I don't know if the 1st report I mentioned will help any at all.... but just happened to be reading, and thought it may have some relevance to your topic here.

Best Regards,

Kim
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top