A local friend brought me a heavily encrusted large-caliber ball for me to make Inert. I had to chip off some thick rust-&-dirt encrustation to get a decent circumference measurement, which turned out to be 27-&-1/4-inches, indicating a 9-inch caliber ball. No fuze could be seen due to the heavy rust-encrustation. When I removed it, a fuzehole was revealed, which was much smaller than normal for such a large-caliber ball... less than one inch in diameter, and non-threaded.
I have a vague memory of another woodfuzed 9-inch ball being discussed here a few years ago, but my keyword search failed to find it. Does anybody remember it?
Insofar as I'm aware, there was no 9-inch cannon in the Revolutionary War nor the War Of 1812. Therefore, I think this woodfuze 9-incher was made by the Confederates for use in the 9-inch Dahlgren shellguns they came into possession of when they seized the US Navy's Gosport (Virginia) Navy Yard upon Virginia's secession in 1861.
My search of this site did turn up an old post by Carl, about him buying some muzzle fragments from a blown-up 9-inch Dahlgren. In that post, he mentions one of those Gosport-captured yankee 9-inch Dahlgren shellguns being set up "on the James" to delay the Yankees march up the Peninsula. If you remember details about that location, Carl, please tell me... because my friend's woodfuzed 9-inch ball was found "somewhere SouthEast of Richmond"... and it was apparently an unfired one, because when I pressure-flushed it, there was absolutely nothing inside but some orange dirt.
Regards,
Pete