Name this sabot?

[Treadhead]

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

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Its name sake had a notorious trial.
John

[emike123]

Looks like a Dyer canister base to me, but I don't know about his trial which would be interesting to learn.

[Treadhead]

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

[Treadhead]

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

[emike123]

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:



That lawsuit stuff was interesting...thanks for sharing.

[Treadhead]

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

[divedigger]

nice picture

[speedenforcer]

make sure no lead is on that wood.

[gflower]

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!

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Please post photos of your Dyer canisters.
John

[gflower]

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.?

[Treadhead]

Hey gflower,

You certainly got my interest up!   Thanks for replying.  Could you clarify the location  “around berg”?

 

Doug

AKA Treadhead

[Pete George]

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

[speedenforcer]

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.