No primers? No problem.

[6lbgun]

     Found this in the diary of Pvt. John Walters.  John served in the Norfolk Light Artillery Blues.  This was contained in his entry of April 3, 1865.  This refers to the action at Rives Salient near the Boydton plank road west of Petersburg the previous day.
     "Today, I came up with that portion of our company who had charge of the mortars in the rear of the main line at  Petersburg.  They all came out safe and must have done well, as after firing til the friction primers were exhausted, they fired some sixty rounds more by heating the priming wires (gimlets) red hot and then inserting them in the vents.  No better evidence than this is required to show that they did their duty."

Dan

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

A six foot wire?   gee they had some guts and could run fast.  Don't think I would want to get that close. Do mortars have rearward recoil or did they just bounce up.
John

[6lbgun]

John,
     I guess the recoil would depend on the degree of elevation.  I would think that the recoil would be down and rearward.  The mortar section was several hundred yards behind the main line.  They were firing into this main line after it had just been captured by the Federals.  I don't know what elevation was used at 200 to 300 yards.
Anyway, they did what they had to do.  They kept firing til they ran out of balls.
Dan

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

They could have called on Jim T and borrowed his balls!

[Dave the plumber]

  I believe what the guy wrote as true since he was there, but, jabbing those punches into a cartridge bag was a helluva risky thing. Besides torching your hand off from the flame at the vent, those punches probably flew through the air like a missle. I wonder if they rigged them to the lanyard to keep them from flying away.

[6lbgun]

     They had to have a fire to heat the gimlets.  I would have poured some cartridge powder in the vent and lit it with a long burning stick.  I've done that with slow match on a British 6 pounder.   Works fine.
Dan