Long ago, before we "The People" decided to stop the oceans from rising, I was kneeling on the floor of Chuck Jones basement artillery museum in Arlington, VA, photographing shells and fuzes for his book and other future projects. Chuck lifted a copper sabot 20 pounder Read-Parrott from Gettysburg's Culp's Hill, pictured below, off one of his display shelves and showed Pete G. and myself the contents arranged on a display case. He said after he had purchased it, he noticed something was loose inside. Instead of the expected case shot balls, Chuck was surprised and pleased to find fired bullets and scrap lead. I believe it is the earliest documented example of the replacement of round case-shot balls with bullets and misc. lead.
I am usually suspicious of such variant and "too good to be true" finds having watched some of our most respected dealers re-thread shells for perfect fuzes and replace the missing sabots from Mullanes. With no fuze plug in the 20 pounder, anyone could have added the contents to increase its value. That goes for the "Gettysburg" attribution, as well. Then, while researching for my 2008 Gettysburg Battlefield Relics & Souvenirs, I stumbled across the following account of Albertus McCreary in his 1909 Gettysburg: A Boy's Experiences of the Battle. He recalled: "The large shells were full of bullets, and we found many of them that had not exploded; we would unscrew the cap-end, and, if we were careful, fill the shell with water before we undertook to extract the bullets." That's about all the proof I need. Lattimer's batteries on Benner's Hill included a few 20 pounder Parrotts.
Since then I have seen and photo'ed several identical 20 pounders from the same time period. All have the same smooth body shape with a long oblong nose and no lathe key. Nearly flat "wafer" iron base knobs with the same tiny lathe dimples. The sabots are thick cast copper with no pre-rifling. The final (color) photo show below is a base view of an identical 20 pounder dug at Brandy Station by Steve Hall. Note the five pairs of crude chisel cuts to create weak spots to help them take the rifling grooves. I have read soldiers' accounts of doing this in the field to improve their performance. I am presenting these shells as possibly the first to use scrap for case-shot material. I also think I know who made these which I will delve into in a future posting.
Woodenhead