The 3 Inch Hotchkiss Bolt in flight;

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

To All Interested;
     A popular bolt during the ACW, but not with the forward troops, this little fella shed its pants and shirt on the way to the target.
 At firing , the impact between the base cup and shell body forced the lead sabot into the cannon's rifling to impart the stabalizing spin. The impact was so violent as to chip the base cup, the swelling sabot loosened its grip on the cup which departed  into the slip stream, followed by the spinning lead sabot much to the dismay of the infantry.
Best Regards,
John 

[CarlS]

John,

Nice action drawing! 

I think it's popular with the collectors but not so much with use during the ACW.  The 3-inch bolt is rather uncommon listed as a rarity 9 in the Dickey and George book.

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Carl,
   Perhaps I should have said the system was popular.
Late Note: There may be sound reasons for it being rare. A lot of projectile searching takes place at the main battlefield. How many hunters will travel a mile of so from the heat of the battle site where the infantry are centered.  Bolts are normally used as counter battery fire.  Lucky is the man who discovers the cannon location. Admittedly bolts are also fired at a massed frontal assault.  Bolts do terrible damage in this instance.
      More of thesebolts may be recovered from the battery location.??
 John

P.s. I think the attached is even rarer.

[CarlS]

One place I know they were fired into was Pigeon Hill which is just south of Kennesaw Mountain and part of a group of 3 peaks (Big Kennesaw, Little Kennesaw and Pigeon Hill).  This is the site of Don Trioni's painting of the Lumsden's Alabama Battery in "Thunder On Little Kennesaw":
      http://www.historicalartprints.com/viewgallist.php?id=165
It's a great painting.  I know of one undershot found long ago and recall hearing of a couple others.

The one in my collection was purchased from Lawrence Christopher and was gotten by him from a digger who dug it outside Chattanooga.  It was separated in the hole and is the one shown in "Melton and Pawl's Guide To Civil War Artillery".

[callicles]

I know we're talking about bolts, but would the Hotchkiss "shell" shed its pants and shirt, too?

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Yes, indeed.  It was a design problem with the Hotchkiss, not the type.  Bolts, shhells and case shot all had this sabot throwing problem, yet some remained entirely intact. Good questionn.  I should have mentioned that fact.
A later modification placed a thin disk of soft wood in the bottom of the base cup in attempt to reduce the impact of the base cup striking the bottom of the shell body. I have no idea if this helped or not.  Each of the intact fired shells would have to have been radiographed to determine if they contained the wood disk.
Regards,
John

[callicles]

Thanks for the info!!

[Jine]

Thanks for this information John, I'd sought similar information elsewhere to no avail.

The first relic I ever recovered (about two years ago) was a Hotchkiss percussion fuse in a plowed field, and that same day my digging pard found a complete Hotchkiss sabot (I assume), 1/4 mile away and steeply uphill. There is no record of field pieces in this area (Dupont's artillery was in action two miles away), but it is conceivable there was a piece or two placed on the crest to hurry the CS troops along at the battle's close.

The question I'd previously sought an answer to and perhaps you can shed light on here is- at what point in flight would a sabot likely separate from the shell? What would be the likely minimum distance from the mouth of the tube? There was not a lot of room on the top of the hill, and I've always wonder if we were dealing with an overshot or the sabot was in the vicinity of the cannon.

I include here an image of the intact sabot. I don't know how common it is for a sabot to not be "stripped" as in your second image.


Thanks in advance for any insight!

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Jime,
    Thank you for your question about sabot distance from source.  That is a fair question but unfortunately range tables do not exist that would indicate when a sabot strips.  The second drawing was made from an intact projectile that had started to strip but evidently impacted beforeit came completely off.
    Col. John Biemick, USA (ret) has some convincing evidence of the Hotchkiss sabots starting to melt in flight due to the heat generated in flight.  If we knew exactly at what point a sabot would depart from a projectile in flight we could begin to locate the cannon source provided we knew its general direction.
    If you have cleaned up your sabot and fuze please post some photos.
All the Best,
John

[CarlS]

Purely congecture on my part but I can see them:

• Stipping in flight and it's probably a random point in the flight path where they separate.
• Projectile hitting a tree or something in it's path causing it to separate.
• Projectile tumbling causing it to separate.
• Sabot stripping lose during ground penetration.  This is pretty obvious since the pieces are typically all found in close proximity (i.e. the same hole).

I wonder how crisp rifling vrs. worn out rifling in a tube affects sabot retention.  As the lands wear there is more room the lead has to expand into to fill the bore. 

The 3-inch Hotchkiss was typically fired from the ordnance rifle which has 7 lands-n-grooves vrs. the Parrott rifle with 3.  Did the number of lands-n-grooves affect it?  The 3.8-inch James typcially had 15 lands-n-grooves and those seem to me to keep their sabots better than the smaller calibers so my guess is it didn't affect it.  Groove depth could be another factor.

Perhaps as important as anything is the amount of twist the cannon imparts on the projectile.  Could a higher twist rate cause a greater probability of slinging the sabot off?  That would seem plausible to me.

[callicles]

This is a very interesting thread and very educational.  Jine, I love the picture of your sabot.  I've never seen one that intact.  Does anyone here know if Jine's find is somewhat rare?

[Jine]

This is a very interesting thread and very educational.  Jine, I love the picture of your sabot.  I've never seen one that intact.  Does anyone here know if Jine's find is somewhat rare?

 callicles, I'm glad you like the picture, which is unfortunately all I can take credit for; I'd love to call the sabot my own but it is my pard's. I too wondered about its rarity, as most sabots I see have "ends" to them.  Here's an image of his of the sabot cleaned up:



 I was so taken with the sabot I told him I'd trade the fuse for it on the spot which is likely a great breach of detecting etiquette, but this was my first hunt .

 Here's a couple of images of the fuse with a nose frag found in the same immediate vicinity:





 Thank you John for your reply; I didn't know if there might have been any known tendencies of sabot separation or witnesses' accounts on record. Would Col. Beimick's work be available anywhere? That sounds like fascinating reading, as is all things artillery. Thanks too for all of your valuable input to this forum.

 Just for fun, but also something I've long pondered as I don't hang around in artillerist's circles, not in person anyway- which is the nerdy version of pronunciation, the Americanized sabot or the French sabeau? Perhaps they're equally cool instead?

 Loving this forum,

 Jine

[emike123]

Col. Biemick's work is not quite finished and available. 

The next year or so should see several new books on Civil War artillery.

Either sabot pronunciation is used.  I suppose technically the French version is correct, but most folks Anglicize it.

[CarlS]

Nice sabot and fuse.  Personally I'd keep the fuse but it's also easier to find at a show than the complete unbroken sabot.  The fuse is also worth a little more from a monetary viewpoint.   I think you are correct also about finding them unbroken as I've found a lot of pieces and only a few complete.  My guess is the flame grooves were a weak spot in the sabot and if the shell assemblage didn’t stay tight during or after firing they were prone to break there.

Does the sabot your buddy found have any flame grooves in it? From the image it doesn’t appear to have but the rifling is so good on it that it's not clear if it doesn't or does.

Regarding the pronunciation, I've pretty much only heard the French version out of the Charleston area or from people who frequent there.  I would guess it's due to the extensive French Huguenot roots there.  I agree with Mike's assessment that it is most certainly the original pronunciation. 

As an aside, for a great basic overview of artillery and its development, a good few minutes reading on the subject can be found at:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery
I am a big fan of Wikipedia!

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Jime,
   Great photos, they make a handsome addition to this thread.   Was the fuze still attached to the nose section?

Carl,
   I agree with the points you made concerning sabot distance from cannon.  I would also think that perhaps the torque given to the sabot by the lands and grooves would also tend to loosen it from the shell body and base cup.
Best Regards,
John