Bullet and Shell Civil War Projectiles Forum
Relic Discussion => Artillery => Topic started by: CarlS on December 23, 2017, 07:35:25 AM
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Here is a neat shell I was happy to pick up at a recent show. It is an early prototype Schenkl for the rifled 6-lber. it has a great example of the early iron percussion fuse. Note there is no tail on it.
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WOW, Very nice.
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Ok, I missed it earlier, I am a novice I'll admit, however I did not realize there were any schenkl's made for any 6 pounder. how rare are they? Are there any common pounder shenkyls that are reasonably priced.
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The caliber certainly isn’t rare and in fact there are a handful of varieties. They aren’t common either. But early in the war they rifled a lot of 6-lber smoothbores and needed light ammunition for them so they created some Schenkl and later some Hotchkiss in a shorter lighter style than the longer rounds intended for 20-lber Parrott rifles. The longer Parrott rounds were too heavy and I don’t think Parrott ever made a light round. Here is an example of the more typical round seen:
http://www.bulletandshell.com/Items/item.php?id=A00944
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ok I was thinking that a 6 pound shenkyl would have been smaller
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I believe the fuse in this makes it that much rarer...
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Svedra: That is very true. The fuses are quite rare. I am aware of their use in Schenkls at Port Hudson and know if one from Shiloh. Being they are iron I’m sure a lot of relic hunters overlooked the fuses from exploded shells since they would be small iron signals. Would love to have s nice one to add to my fuse collection.
Regarding the shell it is a unusual body style. There is no tail knob, it is very short and squatty and it is lathed at the mudsection to the right diameter. There are no ridges on the tail but the less common grooves.
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Here is a 3.67 inch Schenkl shell found by Dick Hammond during the 1960s along the 2nd Manassas campaign. Gen. Pope had a few of the guns - the only time they were used in VA.
Woodenhead
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By “only time they were used in Virginia” did you mean cannons used by the Confederates? I don’t have my books here but weren’t there 3.67-inch shells found at High Bridge?
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This thread twists around a lot. Let me try to sort it out.
1) Carl has an uncommon type of 3.67" Schenkl with the early iron Schenkl percussion fuse.
2) Woodenhead posted a different and more common type of 3.67" Schenkl found around Manassas. He stated this was the only place 3.67" Schenkls were found in Virginia
3) Both Schenkl types shown are Federal shells
4) Carl replied about 3.67" shells used by the Confederates, type not specified, being found at High Bridge.
Carl and Mike O, feel free to correct my comments.
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Mike, that is accurate. My question to Mike was with regards to CS usage of rifled 6-lbers in the east only being by Pope at 2nd Manassas. I thought there were short Read shells at High Bridge which would lead me to believe they had rifled 6-lbers.
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Carl: John Pope was a Union general best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas). Perhaps you were thinking of General Polk of the Confederacy.
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Because these discussions are a search for knowledge and Facts by sharing what we each know, let me make a contribution. The "short" Schenkl 3.67" percussion shell was used by the Yankees at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. I'm certain about that because I dug several fragments from one there, having the distinctive large raised ribs and long fat tail-knob with rounded edge.
Carl, I checked with Bill Graham to answer your question. The Confederate magazine at High Bridge VA held a number of 3.4/3.5" (dual-caliber) Read shells, made for use in the 3.4" Virginia Reamed-&-Rifled 4-pounder Smoothbore and 3.5" Blakely Rifle. It also held some of the late-war "bluntnosed" 3.67" Read shells, for a 20-pdr. Parrott Rifle.
Regards,
Pete
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Mike: My bad. Too lazy to look it up on my phone and of course living about 4 miles from where CS Gen’l Polk got in the way of a Hotchkiss shell I immediately only thought of him.
Pete: I guess it was the latter I was thinking of.
I’m really surprised there was no CS usage of rifled 6-lbers north of North Carolina other than than what Mike O. mentioned. I guess they kept all the new fancy guns up there and sent the well tested guns out west.
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"CS Gen’l Polk got in the way of a Hotchkiss shell"
Sad but funny the way you put it.
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I don't know why I was thinking this. I really do need to memorize the size charts but for some reason at the beginning of this thread I envisioned the 6 pounder shenkyl being small somewhat like a baby mullane.
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It is not a 6-lber Schenkl but a Schenkl made for a rifled 6-lber. It probably weighs about 10 pounds or so. The reference to the 6-lber is before the cannon was rifled when it shot a 3.67-inch round ball which the solid version was a 6 pound solid shot. When rifled the projectile became elongated and the weight increased some.
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gotcha
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Just to add to the breadth of this conversation, I have a 3.67-inch bolt of the same pattern as Carl's, which came out of one of the northern Virginia battlefields. It had been fired and hit something hard tasking a chunk out of the nose.
As to the use of the iron Schenkl fuses, I found parts of one on the Antietam battlefield, down by Burnside's Bridge. Since the only rifled shell fragments I found were from 3.4-inch Schenkls fired by the Union Naval Battery there, I assumed those were the shells they came from.
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Jack: Great info! Thanks.