Artillery

This 3.4" caliber "polygonal cavity" Read is found only at the fort guarding the huge railroad trestle named the High Bridge in Virginia, over the Appomattox River. In the 1850s, the Southside Railroad between Petersburg and Lynchburg was built through Farmville between Burkeville and Pamplin City. The route, which was subsidized by a contribution from Farmville, required an expensive crossing of the Appomattox River valley and flood plain slightly downstream which became known as the High Bridge. The High Bridge's twenty piers contained almost four million bricks, and supported a wooden superstructure. It was believed to be the longest in the world when completed in 1852. The Southside Railroad itself was completed in 1854.The Southside Railroad was heavily damaged during the American Civil War. The High Bridge played a key role during Confederate General Robert E. Lee's final retreat from Petersburg in the last days of the War. The Battle of High Bridge took place there on April 6-7, 1865. Fleeing Union troops, the Confederates set the bridge afire after crossing it, but failed to destroy it. Union troops were able to use it and continued the chase, which ended several days later at Appomattox Courthouse, where Lee's surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865. All of these shells sat undisturbed within the fort, until they were found in the summer of 1960 by teenagers, Tom Brooks and Mike Petrrakos, who would "eyeball" several dozen shells while playing in the fort. Mike's father (George) would help the boys carry them back home, and then buy an old, used army metal detector. After sinking deep shafts into the ground, they probed piles of rifled and smoothbore ammunition--left perfectly stacked just as they were in April, 1865, when Lee's hurried evacuation of Petersburg--and the Richmond government--left no time to do otherwise. A picture of the boys and father Mike Petrakos with ALL of the 800+ projectiles they uncovered is seen on page 243 in the O'Donnell and Sylvia book "The Illustrated History of American Civil War Relics". I can send you a photocopy of the picture (can't put it on the website here unless I ask Steve & Mike for permission--copyrights reserved!)

The diameter of this shell suggests that it was another attempt to produce a dual-gun ammunition that would serve in two different gun calibers. In 1861, the State of Virginia had antiquated 4-pounder smoothbore guns "reamed and rifled" for active service, but most were so old and over-used that they typically were sent to a "backwater" fort far from the front, as was the case with this one. Since it could also be used for 3.5" Blakely Rifles, this truly was a "dual-use" purposed shell. The shell is (obviously) unfired, but ready with the original copper CS paper timed fuze adaptor, and intact copper tapered sabot ring (high convex). This shell has been professionally cleaned and sealed. Iron is completely stable. Only the typical ground action on all of these shells--all being from the boys at High Bridge, and having to have them stored outside (since the parents were too worried about them being loaded and in the house!) Once again, an awfully rare and unique example of Confederate ingenuity and engineering.

Excellent & Very Scarce CS 12-Pound Wood Plug Fuzed "Polygonal" Shell, Cut-In-Half

Exclusively Confederate & Atlanta Arsenal/Campaign Produced Shell, Shaped Internally to Produce Uniform Explosion & Dispersement of Shell Fragments

Wow! My Industrial Engineering degree is really being put to good use! Got to know your authentic, real Civil War history, science, and how to write good descriptions if you want to know what you are really buying! (Ha! Ha! Just remember what the true Lord says in the Good Book, "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge..." ) This is a fine example of the excellence of Confederate engineering, science, & physics which they designed and introduced exclusively in the War. In so many areas--though restricted by manpower, material resources, production capacity & quality control--Confederate ingenuity really showcased itself in a wide array of weapons, ballistic designs, submarines, landmines...you name it. This is the very scarce "Diamond"-pattern, 12-sided polygonal ("many-sided") internal walled 12-pound wood plug fuzed shell that is almost exclusively attributed and found in the Atlanta Campaign, and thus believed to be a Georgia Arsenal product (whether Atlanta Arsenal, Columbus Depot, Macon, or Augusta is not known exactly). For my fellow "heavy metal" enthusiasts (and geeky engineers!) it is a rhomboidal dodecahedron shaped cavity (the "diamond" pattern with 12 sides). There are several polygonal cavity designs of different patterns and number of sides, and the "diamond" is far scarcer than other examples (see Dickey & George "Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War", 1993 Edition). Since each diamond pattern indents toward the outer wall of the shell, the iron is weakest where it is thinnest--being where the outlines of the diamond patterns are. Once again, pure physics at play, whereby in the explosion of the black powder within the chamber causes the force to seek the areas of least wall thickness/strength, and thus the shell would explode into equal pre-determined diamond pattern shaped shell fragments. It literally optimized and maximized the effective destructive and injury-inflicting capability of the shell. As you real relic hunters know, typical spherical internal chamber shells can fragment into as few as two big pieces (since we've dug them by the hundreds). You can obviously kill or hurt up to 12 Yankees every time one of these polygonal shells exploded, versus just 2 or 3! This absolutely astonishing and ingenious use of science/physics with their field projectile ammunition design is a spectacular testimony to the Confederate engineers and designers, given the many other limitations they had to operate under.

Offered here is a slick and wonderful condition specimen that my buddy just had cut in half. You can buy ONE or BOTH! I had him take pictures both with, and without chalk-lining the inside so you can see exactly what the chamber looks like.

Phenomenal Displaying NON-DUG Original 3-Pound US Ketchum Hand Grenade

Excellently-Made, Historically-Correct Reproduction Tail, Fins, & Plunger

Oh my, is this spectacular. Just take a look at this excellent displaying complete 3-pounder Ketchum grenade. The grenade itself is a mint-condition original non-dug 3-pound Ketchum, having the beautifully intact lead/zinc plunger adaptor. The wonderfully made and precise historical reproduction wooden tail, paper fins, and plunger disk insert only serve to put this phenomenal displaying piece "over-the-top." Uncleaned & uncoated, the grenade is 100% in "foundry-new" condition--just like the day it was made. The internal plunger percussion device was removed, and obviously without any powder charge, so it's perfectly safe. The ingenious and revolutionary Ketchum Hand Grenade design was a small engineering marvel, far ahead of it's time. The percussion plunger design was unique for it's time, but proved to be rather ineffective if thrown at more horizontal angles--one needed a high arching "lob" in order to allow both gravity's effect to give it enough force on impact to make the cap pop, and you needed an almost vertical landing to allow the plunger to receive the sufficient force. This is also why the Ketchum Grenade was not very successful, as it's very light weight was simply did not have enough "umph" behind it to give the plunger enough force behind it to pop the percussion cap. The larger and more common 5-pounder size was preferred, due to the weight, but these were largely ineffective, most often being lobbed right back at them by the Confederate defenders! The more reliable use of small field artillery cannonballs being lit and thrown by hand was the best use of "hand grenades" during the war, and was a common practice by the Confederates at close-quarters at Vicksburg and Port Hudson.

This is almost certainly a Bannerman specimen, and outside of original fins, tail, and plunger, you won't find a better non-dug displaying specimen ANYWHERE and ANYTIME. If you are going to buy, always buy the very best. And you've found it.

Sale Pending $1075

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