Confederate Incendiary Bullets

Stiles/Akin

Sergeant Major
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Atlanta, Georgia
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Confederate Incendiary Bullets!​

In the course of the siege of Vicksburg, Union troops were inching their entrenchments ever closer to the C.S. fortifications in one area by working behind a rail car piled high with cotton bales for protection. One of the Confederate regiments that faced this unique method of entrenching activity was the 3rd Louisiana. Lt. Washburn, of the 3rd LA, having no access to any artillery to put a stop to the Union advancement, devised a clever method... of destroying the Union cotton bale protection. Lt. Washburn took their Enfield ammunition, removed the wood base plugs, and filled the base cavities with cotton well soaked in turpentine. When fired from a musket the cotton packed in the bases of the bullets ignited and was still burning when they embedded themselves in the offending cotton bales. The cotton bales piled on the rail car then ignited and turned the whole thing into a ball of flame, which burned everything right down to the axles! Lt. Washburn's clever fabrication of incendiary bullets stopped the Union's advance on that sector of the Confederate lines. Hats off to Lt. Washburn, 3rd LA, CSA for his invention!

This reference is from "Sharpshooters" by Gary Yee, and cited the source as being from "Vicksburg: 47 Days of Siege", by A.A. Hoehling. The incident was also recorded in a dairy on the Union side by Pvt. Jenkin Jones, of the 6th Wisconsin Battery, who said he thought the Confederates had used some kind of rockets to ignite the cotton bales. Other period reports said the bullets looked like fireflys!

From Mark Pollard Facebook
 
That's awesome as I have dug quite a few of the box wood plug base Enfields at Blakley. Good ole fashion Southern ingenuity.
 
I tried to make me a tracer round by gluing some powder from a Roman Candle in the base of a Minie. I couldn't get the black powder charge to ignite it.
I imagine if you packed too much powder behind the bullet, the extra powder may not ignite until after it leaves the barrel and it isn't in contact with the cotton to ignite it.
 
An unusual incident from personal experience:
Some years ago I was with some friends doing some casual shooting at a private club range with Civil War muskets, all of which were repro's. We were all shooting the common Minie ball. One older fellow, and no it wasn't me, was shooting loads he had left over from years past. He had also lubed them well over a year ago with Crisco around the rings and in the base cavity. These things were UGLY and sticky! Every time he fired one of them they left a smoke trail much like a tracer round! He thought it was really cool because he could see exactly where each round went. There had been a clean-up at the range about a month before and they had piled the grass and weeds at the lower edge of the back stop, which was the extent of the range at 100 yards. Several of us saw one of the "smoking tracers" hit in the center of the debris pile. I'm quite sure the guy wasn't aiming at it because he couldn't even hit the target he had posted at the 50 yard line. In about 5 minutes there was a wisp of smoke coming from the pile of trimmings. It was only about another 3-4 minutes when the entire pile ignited and went up in flames! All we could figure was that the old smoldering dried and gooey Crisco grease in the base of that Minie ball had started the fire! So, there's how to make tracers out of Minie balls, lube your bullets with Crisco, then let them sit for over a year and get all sticky and gooey. As a side note, he had lots of fouling problems and all accuracy went right out the window.
J.
 
An unusual incident from personal experience:
Some years ago I was with some friends doing some casual shooting at a private club range with Civil War muskets, all of which were repro's. We were all shooting the common Minie ball. One older fellow, and no it wasn't me, was shooting loads he had left over from years past. He had also lubed them well over a year ago with Crisco around the rings and in the base cavity. These things were UGLY and sticky! Every time he fired one of them they left a smoke trail much like a tracer round! He thought it was really cool because he could see exactly where each round went. There had been a clean-up at the range about a month before and they had piled the grass and weeds at the lower edge of the back stop, which was the extent of the range at 100 yards. Several of us saw one of the "smoking tracers" hit in the center of the debris pile. I'm quite sure the guy wasn't aiming at it because he couldn't even hit the target he had posted at the 50 yard line. In about 5 minutes there was a wisp of smoke coming from the pile of trimmings. It was only about another 3-4 minutes when the entire pile ignited and went up in flames! All we could figure was that the old smoldering dried and gooey Crisco grease in the base of that Minie ball had started the fire! So, there's how to make tracers out of Minie balls, lube your bullets with Crisco, then let them sit for over a year and get all sticky and gooey. As a side note, he had lots of fouling problems and all accuracy went right out the window.
J.
At a reenactment in Columbus, Ga. We were in a little fort area and it was raining. A guy beside me had a pistol he had loaded with bacon grease and grits he used to pack the powder in. Somehow it chain fired and he aimed at his leg. He blew a nice hole in his leg and an ambulance pulled up to retrieve him. He had an old pair of reenacting trousers and it was a nasty wound.
 
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I wonder how they'd have worked against balloons?

Infantry weapons and most artillery lacked the range to hit targets as high as balloons. Only when they were ascending or descending was there even a remote threat of being hit by any projectile as they were usually out-of-range for that too.
 
Infantry weapons and most artillery lacked the range to hit targets as high as balloons. Only when they were ascending or descending was there even a remote threat of being hit by any projectile as they were usually out-of-range for that too.

I can see them being out of range by nature of their tether locations behind friendly lines, but at altitudes of 500' to 1,000' they're within a .58 Minie's 1,000 yard maximum range - particularly from a platoon volume fire.

Right?
 
Hydrogen balloons (and zeppelins) are harder to destroy than you might think. You would imagine that an incendiary round entering the gas bag would do the job. But without oxygen, the bullet can pass straight through.
 
Hydrogen balloons (and zeppelins) are harder to destroy than you might think. You would imagine that an incendiary round entering the gas bag would do the job. But without oxygen, the bullet can pass straight through.

And yet it looks so easy!

image-36-jpg.135066.jpg
 
Hydrogen balloons (and zeppelins) are harder to destroy than you might think. You would imagine that an incendiary round entering the gas bag would do the job. But without oxygen, the bullet can pass straight through.

That so?

11mm rounds seemed to make short work of German balloons & they'd be smaller than .577 Minies.

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It took a combination of explosive bullets and buckingham rounds to bring down a zeppelin. The explosive bullets were hollow and contained a ball bearing. When striking the outer skin of the zeppelin they slowed down rapidly. The ball bearing burst the bullet apart creating a jagged tumbling projectile. This would rip open the gas bags allowing oxygen to enter. When buckingham rounds were first introduced, they were found to be ineffective when used on their own.

http://www.rafhornchurch.thehumanjourney.net/History/Zeplin_2.htm
 
Thanks, I've never seen a primary source reference on mixing those rounds in one belt.
https://sites.google.com/site/britmilammo/-303-inch/-303-inch-explosive

But I see what you're saying - there's a learning curve in every war. Agreed.

It probably wouldn't have taken long for our Civil War era folks to figure out that one platoon volley of something like a Gardiner round followed by a platoon volley of incendiary would do the job.
 
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