Posted on 05/02/2008 5:26:59 PM PDT by nuconvert
Tons of it. Be careful metal detecting around old military bases. The ground might be loaded.
ping
Indeed, one of my favorite quotes.
“I know a guy who broke his leg while re-enacting a Civil War battle. A cannon rolled over his leg. When they took him to the ER, the doctor said to one of the nurses “get me some whiskey - and a saw””
lol...now that’s my kind of doctor...one with a sense of humor and a sense of history.
Yes, pls DO be extra careful!
This colonels comments are wrong in my “experience” but I expect that from those that fly, drive or navigate a desk........scraped up a bunch of folks that have tried to inert their own UXO from all eras. Cannon balls are really very dangerous. Lots of folks have em on the mantles and use em as door stops etc and never dream they are potential “cannon balls”....
I have seen old butterfly mines from WWII and mustard rounds from WWI killing folks. As well civil war, Mexican American war UXO being found in southern NM & TX. We drilled and steamed em with remote tooling set up for such to inert as they were crusty on the outside yet inside.....?:o)
Ya gotta be careful of those rusty bullets... they'll rust on ya!
I too found a small cannon ball or “grape” or “canister” shot as you both call it. Looking on the internet I saw it identified as grape shot, but know very little about the history of cannons, so won’t argue with anybody!
I literally stumbled over it in a field that was being prepared as a parking lot. I thought I had kicked up a geode, but when I picked it up I knew right away what it was.
Bingo. And another rule: "A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."
If the cannonball was from the Union and the gentleman from the South, mission accomplished. (or visa versa)
There were 16 of these balls per canister, fired by a 10-lbs Napoleon gun. They were usually double loaded and had an effective range of about 400 yards. Every chest had 4 of these, 4 shrapnel, 12 shell, and 12 solid shot, 4 chests per limber, and one limber per gun.
Maybe if you knew more about the man, you won’t think so.
A friend of mine that knows how much I like the movie Gettysburg with Jeff Daniels just gave me Gods and Generals the other day and I was going to watch it tonight.
Now, why wouldn't I think that the killing of any confederate general or loss of battle by the confederates would be a great thing? Or were you not serious? You're pulling my leg aren't you?
My sister visited the Verdun battlefield in France back in the 70s. While there, the TV carried a report of another farmer killed when his plow hit a WWI shell. She said that after a rain you could see the stuff sticking up out of the ground.
On a slightly different note, again in the 70s, I attended a college symposium by some think tank guys. One person asked why China couldn't lob a nuke at Russia, blame America, and watch the two superpowers destroy themselves.
The guy shocked the audience by saying, "The first bomb is free." You could hear the gasp and I thought WTF? These guys are crazy.
He then explained that we had a reciprocal agreement with Russia not to hit the button if a huge explosion took place on their soil. As a case in point, he said that the Russians were excavating an area jusr outside of Stalingrad in preparation for another block of tenements. In the process they uncovered a vast ammunition dump abandoned by the Germans. He said it contained over 20,000 tons of explosives and that all a bulldozer had to do was hit one of the shells the wrong way with it's blade to create a Hiroshima-strength explosion.
There was a scuba-diving salvage fella killed in the late 1950s by a badly-handled flintlock/ black powder musketoon from the circa-1680 period. The muzzle, it seems, was found to have been blocked with a lead ball [big surprise there!] so since the proper *worm* for removal was unavailable, instead a torch was applied in attempt to melt the obstruction for removal. Shortly thereafter: BOOM!
It apparently never occurred to anyone that the watch on duty carried loaded weapons and that when the ship went down such niceties as unloading or discharging their hardware was not of a high priority to the surviving crew.
I doubt it's a *record* and am also aware of a Crimean War museum piece projectile [circa 1855] exploding during a storage facility fire, thankfully without resulting in human injury. But I'd bet that there have been occasions in which recovered explosive cannon shot were brought home to the family domicile and later exploded during residence fires have claimed more than a few unlucky or stupid folks, particularly in the days when homes were heated and cooking was done via open flames.
Imagine their suprise!
I’m not sure I would want to be remembered as the guy that set off the last munition from that conflict.
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