picture of a nice hotshot from Shiloh, thanks to Carl and Jon for remembering me since I couldn't attend. Metals really clean and you can see all the molding details. I assume the slot was for where they crimped the metal so there would not be a raise in the side, not sure what the upper holes are for around the top. now the 1st question comes to mind is, why were these at shiloh since they were designed as a anti ship round, and took a pretty substantial "oven" to heat them to red hot. A couple ideas came about while discussing this concept. 1. The battle was early war before there were too many ironclads, were they fired at boats on the river?. 2 The supplies for both armies were usually short, were they fired non heated as a double shot because thats what they had. 3, Were some hotshot repurposed as canister. both bases have been found at Shiloh, were the hotshot redone for more needed canister rounds