Double Bridges, Louisiana. In the far tree line is the site of the second of two bridges that spanned the Dupont bayou near Robeline, LA. The Federal army in retreat from its early loss at Mansfield, burned the bridge. A caisson of captured Confederate shells was left in the middle of the bridge and tumbled into the water below. It remained there until October 15, 1969 when the bayou temporarily dried up and Wilbur Davis discovered the caisson remains and the projectiles inside. As forumite Terry Waxham recounted to me, “it was an exciting day and sad day for him. He got so excited that he suffered a major heart attack and crawled a great distance to an old house for help. He lived for a few years after this and suffered another heart attack and died. His son, Larry is one of my best friends… No shells had fuses in them and quite a few of the three flame groove parrots (Marshall Texas Reads) were found in the bayou with them. Tom Dickey was the first to use Provencal as the location in his first book, probably to keep the hordes of relic hunters at bay until the area was well hunted and twenty years later a few of the shells were still being found on top of the hill there.”
This picture was taken on March 5, 2008 from my car from a bridge on rte 120 over the bayou.
The two shells shown below were recovered at Double Bridges. The high banded sabot 20pdr Parrott must have been captured by the Confederates before in turn being re-captured by the Union Army at Mansfield. It is an uncommon shell. Pete George wrote, “The Band-sabot Parrott was referred to as "the Navy model" Parrott sabot, because it was used almost exclusively by the Navy. The Army greatly disliked this sabot's tendency to sling off the projectile at the cannon's muzzle upon firing, which is very bad news for your own troops who are stationed in front of an Artillery Battery to protect it. (The Navy tended to be firing over water, not over the heads of friendly troops.)
As noted, the Army hated this sabot, but it got used in "Western" Campaigns from 1863 to 1865. The Army of the Potomac, being the protector of the nation's capital, had enough Political power to reject Parrott projectiles with this sabot. So, the comparative few that were produced in Field Artillery calibers got sent to the "Western" yankee armies.”
The fuse is a non dug percussion fuse that I added. Terry Waxham said that was the type of fuse used on these shells in the vicinity.
The second shell is one of the CS Schenkls for the same 3.67” rifled cannon.
Reference: 20pdr Band Sabot Parrott: 1993 D&G, page 227
3.67” Marshall Arsenal CS Schenkl: 1993 D&G, page 313
