Bama1978 wrote:
> Does anyone have any more information on these two?
First, let me introduce my qualifications for answering your question. I co-authored the "encyclopedic" (552-page) book titled "Field Artillery Projectiles of the Americn Civil War" -- which contains a 56-page section on fuzes. I've been intensely studying the many variations of civil war fuzes for about 35 years.
Sorry to have to tell you, those items are absolutely definitely not fuzes, nor fuze parts. They are brass bushings for a rotating shaft, such as a doorhandle's shaft. I own two excavated specimens of your item which show no-doubt-about-it "rotational wear" inside their "throat."
Here are four additional points of evidence that these items are not fuzes:
1- The metal body of all artillery fuzes is either tapered or threaded, in order to grip the fuzehole firmly enough to withstand firing from the cannon. These non-tapered, non-threaded items cannot achieve that absolutely-necessary grip.
2- Despite many hundreds of these items having been dug by relic-hunters, NOT A SINGLE ONE has ever turned up which shows blast-damage from explosion of the shell, grenade, or land-mine.
3- NOT A SINGLE ONE has been found showing impact-damage (from the shell hitting the ground).
4- Nor has any shell or grenade or land-mine (from any era of History) ever been dug with one of these items in it.
The only logical conclusion from all of that evidence is that they are not fuzes.
Note:
The author of the only book "purely" about civil war fuzes agreed with the evidence I've given you, and thus these items do not appear in his book, "Artillery Fuses of the Civil War" (by Charles H. Jones).
All of that having been said... many people think they are fuzes, because a book which was written back in the late 1960s incorrectly shows them as being CS Girardey Fuze Adapters. Though that book has been reprinted many times, the error has never been corrected. That book is McKee-&-Mason's "bullet book", titled Civil War Projectiles II - Small Arms & Field Artillery.
Regards,
Pete [P.C. George]
