Bullet and Shell Civil War Projectiles Forum
Relic Discussion => Artillery => Topic started by: Treadhead on December 28, 2011, 05:52:26 PM
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Speedenforcer dropped a challenge for more postings. This is my response. Attached is a picture of a sabot. Can you ID this unusual item?
I collected it a few years ago. I had only seen two others of its type in person before this showed up in the mail. I guess not everything on ebay is misrepresented. Although I don’t think the seller knew exactly what they had.
The sabot is lead and so is the unique style of bullet that is in the picture with it.
(The bullet is a hint and belongs with the sabot)
Any guesses,
Doug
AKA Treadhead
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Its name sake had a notorious trial.
John
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Looks like a Dyer canister base to me, but I don't know about his trial which would be interesting to learn.
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In the post war, Clifford Arrick a famous patent grabber and lawyer tried to have Gen. Dyer removed from his post as Chief of Ordnance because Dyer blocked the purchase of 3-inch projectiles that Arrick had a large financial stake in. Stafford's design. He accused Dyer of misconduct in the purchase of Dyer & Abstrdam shells. His charges were trumped up and the attempt failed.
Doug
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The correct answer to the picture is Dyer canister. Good call Mike. The bullet in the picture is one of the 108 estimated bullets in the short version of the canister round. It used a nipped off round stock for bullets instead of the regulation iron balls in normal canister. During McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign in 1862, the Dyer canister and the 3-inch Ordnance rifle were just issued to a number of batteries. The one member of a gun crew wrote that they were anxious to use their new canister loaded with the one hundred bullets on the rebs. Just a few weeks later, after the Battle of Gaines Mill I believe, the same gun crews were in shock as they had just found out that their powerful new and deadly accurate 3-inch gun was no better that a “pop gun” against the determine confederate infantry at close range in the battle. The Dyer canister seems to have faded after that. Some was used after Antietam by the Horse Artillery and some more seems to have been issued in Grant’s Overland campaign in 1864, but I think it was somewhat rare. Does anyone know of other battlefield where Dyer bullet / slugs or sabot were recovered?
Doug
AKA
Treadhead
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I have some one of our forum members dug at Petersburg.
Another infrequent forum member, Dave Gotter, calls those nipped off lead bits, "tootsie rolls" and I like the name. I'd like to accumulate enough to reconstruct a round with the base I have, but its going to take a long time to get that many. All I have are the few stacked atop the canister base in the right of this sabot picture:
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff458/emike123/DSCN2110.jpg)
That lawsuit stuff was interesting...thanks for sharing.
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I like the name "Tootsie roll." It gives a good mental picture. So just when you acquire 108 bullets for the reconstruction, you'll need to find another 164 for the long version of the canister. See, it never ends!
Doug
AKA
Treadhead
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nice picture
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make sure no lead is on that wood.
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Sorry to have gotten in late,but Mike is right, dyer. I know cause I have dug 3 of them. Mike I told you. All of my dyers were found around berg along with those gloried rolls!
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Please post photos of your Dyer canisters.
John
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I will have to do so after I get back to my office mike has one and I have one the same size and one in a smaller size maybe 6lber.?
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Hey gflower,
You certainly got my interest up! Thanks for replying. Could you clarify the location “around berg”?
:)
Doug
AKA Treadhead
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Treadhead wrote:
> Does anyone know of other battlefield where Dyer bullet / slugs or sabot were recovered?
Battle of Salem Church VA, which is a component of the May 1863 battle of Chancellorsville. I dug an unfired lead-slugs-type Dyer canister in a farmer's grassy field, about 40 feet north from the Orange Plank Road's edge, a few hundred feet east of the yankee Salem Church battlefield monument. Very unfortunately, my unfired Dyer canister had been torn to pieces by a farmer's plow. I'm sure it was unfired because I dug several dozen of its distinctive lead canister-slugs in an area no bigger than 10 feet across, and the ground was quite flat. Also, it was a few feet inside the yankee cannon-emplacement's position.
Regards,
Pete
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Judge Flower, How is the traffic around the court house? Are they finished with the construction yet? I want to come by and see the collection you have in the office. But I will make sure the construction is completed first.
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Thanks Pete! ;) The details of the circumstances an item like that was recovered are so very important. (at least to me) Salem’s Church was a very nervous time for Sedgwick’s yankees. Cut off and almost surrounded, I’m sure they left more than a couple of items lying around before they skedaddled across the Rappahannock. May I speculate? Judging from your description, it sounds like someone may have been stacking canister near the month of their guns against regulation. (Again!)
Doug
AKA Treadhead
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Below is a complete Dyer Canister, courtesy of Dave the Plumber.
Regards,
John
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WOW! :) Great pictures! Thanks Dave, with and assist to Bart.
One thing that puzzles me a little is why they took the time to reinforce my Dyer canister sabot with those little tin strips in an “X” pattern on the bottom. Just like the Dyer shells & case shot. (Dave’s sabot doesn’t have it) My understanding is that the reinforcement was to prevent the sabots from cracking in the gun, which in turn caused the shells to fail to take to the rifling. Canister didn’t need to spin. In fact, that was a bad thing for canister. So why bother with the reinforcement? ………… Any thoughts?
Can anyone else tell me if they’ve seen these “X” reinforcements on other dyer canister sabots?
Doug
AKA Treadhead
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Sorry for the delay been busy with Gator bowl stuff petersburg is where I found the dyer bottoms and slugs. Speed enforcer we are not in the new court house until may so your good to come by
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Doug,
Perhaps they didn't care if canister took the rifling or not. Would it have to in order to perform?
John
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The sabot is used on canister to take the rifling not to impart rotation but to seal the bore so the projectile can take full advantage of cannon's exploding charge and not lose some to windage. You'll see a lead cup on the Hotchkiss and James as well for this. Interestingly you don't on Parrott (wood sabot similar to smooth bore) and Sawyer (iron can) canister.
On Jack Melton's web site (http://www.civilwarartillery.com/) in two of his 3-inch Dyer examples, he had this to say about the tin straps on a Dyer:
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From: http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/rifled/FAOIIIa66.htm -
A pair of crossed tin straps were soldered to the iron base of the projectile through a hole in the lead base. This was an attempt to help correct the problem of the sabots falling off the projectile after leaving the cannon.
From: http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/rifled/IIIA60.htm -
Often the lead sabot of the 3-inch Dyer projectile became separated during firing. According to a letter found in the National Archives written by Major J.G. Benton to General Alexander B. Dyer and dated October 28, 1864, this problem was corrected: "...the old cups can be easily removed and good ones put on at a cost to the Government of 15 cents. There are about 55,000 of these projectiles at this Arsenal and I think that they can be made serviceable by Mr. Taylor's plan...Forty projectiles arranged in this way were fired without a single failure or detachment of the sabot."
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I don't know anything about straps being used on Dyer canister but I can't imagine what the value of them would be other than possibly strengthening the base so it doesn't disintegrate on discharge. The Dyer canister sabot in my collection does not have straps.
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gflower,
Thanks for the clarification on Petersburg. That helps. There’s just to many “bergs” in the Civil War to count.
Carl,
Your thoughts suggesting they may have wanted to make sure they sealed the bore make a lot of sense to me. Perhaps they didn’t yet realize that the spin hurt the distribution of the canister balls or bullets. Hopefully some day I’ll find more info.
To John’s question about the rifling’s effect on canister;
If you read between the lines looking at the limited number of Dyer canister bases recovered, it would seem that something wasn’t quite right with the Dyer canister. The Hotchkiss canister, which was designed to limit the rifling effect, appears to have been available in limited numbers on the Peninsula. About the same time the Dyer canister would have been used heavily for the first time. Obviously the Hotchkiss canister won the competition as over 100,000 were manufactured during the war. That’s significant if for no other reason than the Dyer canister was designed by Ordnance officers. The Ordnance Department repeatedly rejected adopting private designs like Hotchkiss’ canister until almost forced to by failures of their designs in the field.
Based on the recoveries mentioned before in the thread, and a few inventory sheets of Ordnance issued to field troops I saw at the National Archives, it would seem that a few Dyer canister rounds were salted away in the limber chests for a special occasion for the majority of the war. At least in the East. Given the nature of the large number of bullets in the round, for those nasty short range close encounters seems the best reason to keep a few on hand.
To all: A posting of any other recoveries of Dyer canister bases or bullets would always be greatly appreciated.
Doug
AKA Treadhead
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Doug,
Thank you for your timely input to the Forum. It is information such as yours and others that make this new Forum very interesting.
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The necessity of tin straps make zero sense to me, unless it was to help keep the round together in shipping and during travel in the limber. That is the only good explanation I can come up with.
I understand the need for the lead sabot to fill the rifling to keep gas pressure behind the round 'pushing' on the cannister pieces as high as possible for maximum effectiveness and destructiveness through travel.
I agree that imparting spin of the contents keeps them together more as they travel through the air, which as mentioned earlier, isn't necessarily a good thing [ depends on the range of your target though ]
As a plumber of the old school, I know how difficult it is to join the two different materials of cast iron and lead.......Back in the day, we would take cast iron, heat it up with a torch, apply flux to clean it and prep the surface, then use a bar of lead that is actually 50 % of tin antimony and 50 % lead and melt that onto the prepared, hot cast iron, using a special stiff cotton fabric with melted candle wax on it as a trowel or spatula to distribute it evenly. We actually had to melt the wax onto the fabric ourselves each time we used it.The lead wouldn't stick to the fabric with the wax on it. We called this 'tinning' it Then we would carefully, very carefully, use a torch to gently melt the lead into the tinning on the cast iron, adding more solder as necessary to create the bond. The lead we worked with was only maybe 1\8 inch thick, so a thick dense sabot would be much more forgiving. We had to be able to do this in the field, and I had to demonstrate it to get my master plumbers license back in the last century sometime. Thank goodness for pvc !!
Anyway, I can see why attaching a lead cup style sabot to a rounded bottom cast iron shell would require the tin straps to help hold it all together - loose the sabot and your projectile's flight is severly effected. But, I have no idea why they would use tin straps on a cannister \ shotgun style round, unless it were to hold it together for shipping.
Sorry for the long response.....
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The straps don't have anything to do with holding the sabot onto the shell's base. (Hasn't anybody noticed that contrary to the statement, the straps never pass "through a hole in the lead base." They are simply soldered onto the sabot.
Nor anything to do with "strengthening" the sabot.
Nor anything to do with the letter from Major Benton to Dyer which announced the discovery of a remedy for the sabot-separation problem, in late-October 1864.
I've been telling people for at least 25 years that the tinned-iron straps held a powderbag, as "Fixed" ammunition. In the mid-1980s, a large cache of unfired 3" Dyers was found on the Fredericksburg battlefield. Some of those Dyers were so well-preserved that the straps hadn't entirely rusted away, and they curved "downward" (away from the sabot). Also, some of them had bits of the powderbag fabric still remaining.
Anybody who doesn't want to believe me can talk to some of the oldtime Fredericksburg diggers (like Dennis Cox, Danny Elkins, and Dan Poppen) who will surely remember the discovery of that fabulous shell-cache. It was dug near the Ferry Farm, on the Stafford Heights (yankee-occupied) side of the Rappahannock River, about a mile or two south of the old center of Fredericksburg. That cache contained a mix of unfired 3" Dyers and 3" Schenkls. They were in remarkably well-preserved condition. Several of the Schenkls still had the almost-fully-intact zinc "sleeve" covering their paper mache' sabot.
The Dyers were of even greater interest to me than those zinc-sleeved Schenkls. In addition to the well-preserved powderbag-holding straps, several variations of the Dyers had a good bit of original Ordnance Department color-coding paint on the sabot. The Common-Shells had orange paint, the Case-Shot had red paint, and the Percussion-shells (containining Schenkl Percussion fuzes) had green paint. Which is why I've also been saying for 25 years that those colors are the colorcode for civil war Army artillery projectiles.
Proof of the Army Artillery colorcode: In addition to the Fredericksburg cache, other sabots and fuzes have been dug with those colors (and only those colors) on them ...but that is a subject for a separate post ...I intended this one to be mainly about the Dyer sabot crossed tinned-iron straps' purpose.
Regards,
Pete
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Hi Pete,
I always look forward to your posts. You have so much personal knowledge and wonderful detail to share. I’m aware of the Taylor modifications to the Dyer in 1864 and have a fair amount of detail on that subject. The tin “X’ seems to have showed up as early as Malvern Hill in early July 1862. Fixed rifled ammunition (powder bag attached directly to the projectile) was not a common practice, but there is enough written references to say it was done. Certainly the canister round makes perfect sense as there would be times when you wanted to fire these as fast as you could. I believe they did “fix” Hotchkiss shell, case shot & canister rounds as well. But I would debate that the tin strips were not used to strengthen the sabot. I didn’t address these areas as the post was about the seemingly obscure Dyer canister round and didn’t want to draw too far away from that subject.
Perhaps a new thread for a friendly debate on this subject is a good idea? :)
Doug
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Pete: Thanks for the info on that cache. Do you know of any images/pictures of this find showing that? I would very much like to see how that attachement looked.
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Additionaly, can someone post the letter from Major Benton to Dyer which announced the discovery of a remedy for the sabot?
John
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Treadhead (Doug) wrote:
> Perhaps a new thread for a friendly debate on this subject is a good idea? :)
Sure, I'm up for that. :) Like you, I didn't want to drag the discussion too far away from the original topic.
Regards,
Pete
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Great, I'll post the new thread "Those Pesky Little X's" tonight after work. The worst thing that can happen is that we all learn a little more! :)
John, I'll see if I can find some editable text reference on the work Taylor did to the Dyer 1864. If not, we’ll have to talk offline.
Doug
AKA
Treadhead
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Mike, good luck finding enough of those 'tootsie rolls' to build your canister round, it only took me about 15 years of digging thru those 'anything for a dollar' boxes to come up with enough do do mine ... :) The complete dug round I have with a portion of the tin sides rusted away, and the shot showing thru came from Dan Poppins' collection, and I got it 10-12 years ago. Dave G
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Does anyone know of other battlefield where Dyer bullet / slugs or sabot were recovered?
Doug
AKA
Treadhead
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I'm brand new to this forum and really enjoyed this thread; I dug this example on the field of Brandy Station last Thursday:
(http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/9197/img4837xc.jpg)
This will not be new to Pete, who identified for me (thanks again, Pete!).
Jine (Douglas)
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Welcome. Presumably you provided Pete with measurements which are very helpful for ID'ing things such as this.
I approved you yesterday after a search of your IP address to see that you weren't on a Spam list or based in Pakistan or some such place and after Googling your handle which is very creative. Is this the reference or just a coincidence:
JINE THE CAVALRY
CHORUS:
If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry!
Jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry!
If you want to catch the Devil, if you want to have fun,
If you want to smell Hell, jine the cavalry!
We're the boys who went around McClellian,
Went around McClellian, went around around McClellian!
We're the boys who went around McClellian,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!
CHORUS
We're the boys who crossed the Potomicum,
Crossed the Potomicum, crossed the Potomicum!
We're the boys who crossed the Potomicum,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!
CHORUS
Then we went into Pennsylvania,
Into Pennsylvania, into Pennsylvania!
Then we went into Pennsylvania,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!
CHORUS
The big fat Dutch gals hand around the breadium,
Hand around the breadium, hand around the breadium!
The big fat Dutch gals hand around the breadium,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!
CHORUS
Ol' Joe Hooker, won't you come out of The Wilderness?
Come out of The Wilderness, come out of The Wilderness?
Ol' Joe Hooker, won't you come out of The Wilderness?
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!
CHORUS
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Thank you for the welcome, emike123! I did provide Pete with the dimensions at his request, 3" in diameter, 7/16" in height, etc. He also pointed out its septagonal shape which I overlooked, and really doesn't show up well in the image I provided here. He stated that the shape indicated it was fired by a 3" ordnance rifle, something else I learned in short order!
You have me all figured out, just with four little letters, and now that ditty is stuck playing in my head. Something of a romantic and knight errant, I find pleasure in the thought of J.E.B. Stuart singing for Ol' Joe Hooker to make his presence known in the midst of battle. I'm something of a cav guy with a passion for arty.
I'm thrilled to have found your forum, and look forward to the enlightenment to come. A quick follow-up question if I may- there may be a wide range and amount of variables in play here, but what is the likely maximum distance this sabot would have traveled? I was surprised to have found it at all where I did, and the idea of it being Federal makes it all the more perplexing.
Thanks again, I'm glad to have found y'all!
Jine
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Is it a canister base? If so they were not used at long ranges. I seem to recall 300 yards or less was the guideline.
For a full listing of the range tables for the 3" Ordnance rifle, go to Jack Melton's site civilwarartillery.com, click on "technical information" and then "range tables" and then scroll about halfway down to find them for the 3in Ordnance rifle. Max listed for a 3in Ordnance rifle firing a case shot projectile at 16 degrees elevation and a 1lb charge is 4,180 yards. It would take 17 seconds to reach its target.
Happy to have others chime in here and correct me / add to the discourse.
Jine the cavalry artillery!
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You know, I didn't even think to look there; Melton's site has been of great benefit in the past. D.S. Freeman's landmark work Lee's Lieutenants has a surprising amount of information in its appendices, I'll check there too. Thanks for doing the preliminary digging at civilwarartillery.com.
Jine the artillery; I've never thought of that :o, but it would have made a great username; I use jinethecavalry at a few other sites, but it's so blatant that I started shortening it to Jine.
Thanks again for your help, enjoy that weekend!
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Jine wrote:
> Does anyone know of other battlefield where Dyer bullet / slugs or sabot were recovered?
First... there were no Dyer bullets. Dyer Canister contained pieces of a round lead rod which was about 5/8" in diameter, cut into pieces which were approximately 3/4"-long. Thus, we call them Dyer Canister "slugs."
I was hoping some other diggers & collectors here would post their answers to your question, because I do not believe I know everything there is to know. Since nobody else has spoken up, here is my reply to your question.
I should begin by stating that Dyer's Canister is quite rare version of canister. Jine, on a strict "number of specimens known" scale of rarity, your 3" Dyer Canister sabot was one of the very rarest items found at the DIV hunt ...even more rare than some of the Confederate buttons and buckles found at that hunt.
The "Field-recovered" evidence indicates Dyer Canister ammo was used almost only by the Army of the Potomac, and only in the first 24 months following the Battle of Manassas (july 1861). The overwhelming majority of fired Dyer Canister sabots and slugs have come from 1862-to-mid-1863 battle sites in Virginia.
In my 34 years of living in Virginia and digging for artillery projectiles at many dozens of major and minor Virginia battlesites, I've found only one Dyer Canister sabot. It was at the May 1863 battle of Salem Church, which part of the Chancellorsville Campaign. That was also the only place I've dug any Dyer Canister "slugs."
Apparently, Dyer Canister was gradually superceded by the arrival of Hotchkiss Canister, which first shows up in mid-1862 sites, and remained in widespread use through the end of the war.
Regards,
Pete
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Here's a picture of the bottom of the canister base I got from a member of this forum that was dug in Petersburg. Pete, as per your request, I have included 7 of the "Tootsie Roll" shaped canister shot with it.
(http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff458/emike123/DSCN0383.jpg)
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Pete,
You just "blew me away", point blank, with your reply. Are you certain by the images that I provided that it is a Dyer? If there is room for question I could mail it to you for your inspection, or we could meet in the area of our capitol. I've been detecting for about 1.5 years, digging more artillery-related (virtually all frags) objects than anything else. In the first half-hour of my very first dig I recovered a Hotchkiss percussion fuse, which until this past weekend was my best find. In three DIV outings I haven't dug a single military buttton, nor anything else personal until I recovered a US belt plate last Saturday. I say all that to say I've been feeling like the Charlie Brown of relic hunting ("I got a rock"), but after last weekend perhaps things are looking up a bit.
By the way, it was Treadhead's question that you answered in the beginning of your reply; I replied to him with my find. Another question, prompted by emike123's tootsie roll image. I imagine the answer will be in the negative, but did they ever use iron "slugs"? I found this also last weekend with no idea what it might be, about 5/8ths of an inch long. I'm not inquiring about it being used in Dyer canister, as I take your statement that they used lead slugs at face value. I didn't know if it would fit as being used in another form of projectile; just as likely part of a farming implement, I reckon. Two images here, second one is end-on.
Thanks for such exciting news, may it hold true. ::)
Jinetheartillery ;)
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Jine wrote:
> Are you certain by the images that I provided that it is a Dyer?
I am 100%-certain that your find is a fired Dyer Canister sabot. The only reason yours looks a bit different from the one in Emike's photo is that the cannon's firing-blast "blew through" the thin center of the sabot.
> If there is room for question I could mail it to you for your inspection, or we could meet in the area of our capitol.
If you ever come to the Richmond VA area, you are welcome to visit my house and do some hands-on viewing of lots of "cool" civil war artillery projectile relics.
> Another question, prompted by emike123's tootsie roll image. I imagine the answer will
> be in the negative, but did they ever use iron "slugs"?
Yes, but a different form than the Dyer Canister "tootsie roll" slugs. In the second half of the war, the Confederates used "foundry & metalwork-shop" floor-sweepings for Canister and for case-shot (inside explosive shells).
> I found this also last weekend with no idea what it might be, about 5/8ths of an inch long.
> I'm not inquiring about it being used in Dyer canister, as I take your statement that they used
> lead slugs at face value. I didn't know if it would fit as being used in another form of projectile
For any level of certainty in identifying it, you'll need to clean the rust-crust off of it. I know of a couple of artillery-projectile-related item it might be, but we'll discuss that after it is cleaned.
Regards,
Pete
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Well thanks as always Pete! I'd been wondering about hole in the base since I found it, whether it might had been plow-damaged or something.
I'd love to come your way and be exposed to whatever relics you'd like to share. I'm always looking for an excuse to come to Richmond, I love that city. We'll try to make that happen in the next couple of months.
I'll work on that little iron piece and post it for your opinion. Thank you for sharing your insights, knowledge and wisdom; that is worth a whole lot!
Thanks too to those who make this forum possible.
Jine (Douglas)
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Video version of your theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh1YU3YKFBI
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Thanks for that, emike123! I hadn't seen that before, that's a load of Stuart images; a couple of those were new to me. Stuart has his detractors, I ain't one of them, although admittedly he could've spent his time better in MD & PA.
That's a great rendition of the song, thanks again!
"Jine" :)
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Dunno if this should be directed to "Jine" or Pete G ... it is indeed a Dyer canister base, as Pete said, the 7 groove proves it came from a 3" Ordnance rifle, but that 'perfect' hole in the center has me puzzled ... I have 3-4-5 Dyer bases, one or two with cross straps in its center, one or two w/o, one with a bit of a ragged torn hole in the center, but that one looks drilled. (?) Couple of my bases are fired, all from Ordnance guns, one or two are unfired. I have seen Dyer canisters with the lead 'tootsie rolls' as slugs, and with 69 musket balls as shot. I have unfired specimens of both. Also after 20+ years of collecting, one of the Dyer "long pattern" canisters, battlefield pickup, w/o shot, but I 'reloaded' it with musket balls ... being unable to lay my hands on that many tootsie rolls. :( I have also seen a sectioned 3" Parrott case shot, filled with those lead chunks. So they did have several purposes. Dave G
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Hi Dave G.
You know that one photograph is worth ten thousand words. Please post some.
Regards,
John