Ammo Bite the bullet

[Pvt. Hollifield]

Hey y'all. I've had this bullet for over 30 years, I paid a dollar for it. I went to a ACW show at the farmers market in Forest Park ( Just South of a Atlanta) with my dad. A man there was selling some of his small dug items for a dollar each. I got a few things and this bullet was one of them. I got it out the other day and thought it looked like a piece of used chewing gum. Then I thought it might have been in some poor soldiers mouth to bite down on during a amputation or some other painful trip to the doctor. So I took it to the Dentist today and asked him his thoughts. He told me he was pretty sure those were teeth marks on the bullet. He is a bit of a ACW buff himself and knew about the medical practices used back then. When you look at it you can't help but feel sorry for some poor young man (if he lived) who's life had changed forever.

 

[Ethan S.]

They do look like teeth marks, but I believe it might be from a pig. Don't ask me why, but they liked chewing on things. Besides, the choking hazard would have caused me to go find a stick, and not a bullet.

That being said, it's still a neat relic.

 

[UCVRelics]

Most of that is an old wives tale as the majority of the bite bullets were done by hogs and rodents.

 

[Lubliner]

I think a leather strap, such as a belt, or a piece of cloth, such as a tourniquet would be more advantageous to bite down and and grind with the teeth, IMO. I would still believe a dentist's call if he could identify the teeth. When it becomes problematic, I weigh the odds.
Lubliner.

 

[John S. Carter]

Hey y'all. I've had this bullet for over 30 years, I paid a dollar for it. I went to a ACW show at the farmers market in Forest Park ( Just South of a Atlanta) with my dad. A man there was selling some of his small dug items for a dollar each. I got a few things and this bullet was one of them. I got it out the other day and thought it looked like a piece of used chewing gum. Then I thought it might have been in some poor soldiers mouth to bite down on during a amputation or some other painful trip to the doctor. So I took it to the Dentist today and asked him his thoughts. He told me he was pretty sure those were teeth marks on the bullet. He is a bit of a ACW buff himself and knew about the medical practices used back then. When you look at it you can't help but feel sorry for some poor young man (if he lived) who's life had changed forever.View attachment 323945View attachment 323947View attachment 323949View attachment 323950View attachment 323951View attachment 323952

If you were in torment then you would bite down on whatever hard item that the surgeon would place in your mouth,As to the bullet ,what metals where bullets composed of and could biting on them caused such markings?Did carbines use different ammunition as to make these markings when bitten?The cone on top gives me to wonder if this a bullet or other object.Would this object fit the barrel of a muzzleloader,it appears to be rater large in relation to the finger.A CW weapons expert could give you a better idea than a dentist.This in not to say that no one ever bite down on a bullet the question is what bullet did they bite?

 

[Frederick14Va]

The "pain bullet" is a myth. "Biting the bullet" is an expression unrelated to surgery. Not a single account from a medical/surgical case report has ever mentioned a bullet being used as such. Besides you wouldnt place an object that could fracture teeth or small that could be aspirated. Sometimes soldiers were known to have chewed on them more out of boredom than anything else... they would also carve them into game pieces. Overall majority of tooth marks found on these are contributed to rotents and hogs that liked to chew of these for some reason. Some hog tooth marks can closely resemble human molar impressions. The bullet in question appears to be a Williams Cleaner Bullet (frequently tossed away whenever a soldier could get away with it) It also appears to be unfired since the zinc plunger on the back hasnt been compressed forward as occurs when its fired. Hard to tell if it might be a type-II or Type-III, since the rings didnt survive too well.

 

[Tom Hughes]

I had never seen a chewed Williams Cleaner bullet before. That's a cool relic for $1.00
Farm animals and rodents and pigs make up the majority of the chewed bullets that we find on the battlefield and in camp sites. Although, I'm sure that chewing lead "being a soft metal" might feel good to a soldier's aching gums. Who knows? Nice relic to have. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[3rd North Carolina]

that is just taken it to all other level now

 

[Rick Richter]

Pigs bit on bullets thinking they were acorns. Try biting a Civil War bullet, you'd be lucky to even make an impression on it, much less mash it like so-called pain bullets. Both sides generally had enough anesthetics to avoid this type of solution

 

[byron ed]

Think about it. You don't bite down hard on something so hard it could easily fracture your teeth, and nobody would have you do that. People back in the day had the same human experience we do today, they weren't acting out a byline for some history essay.

 

[Waterloo50]

I'm sure that I read somewhere here on CWT that quite a few men chewed on bullets just like chewing gum, I guess they weren't aware of lead poisoning.

 

[byron ed]

I'm sure that I read somewhere here on CWT that quite a few men chewed on bullets just like chewing gum, I guess they weren't aware of lead poisoning.

Whatever you read, a hard metal bullet is not a chewable item for humans. As humans ourselves we inherently know this, right? How many of us have attempted to bite down on a softer-than-lead Jaw Breaker candy ball? (btw given that brand name for a reason).

Yes I suppose soldiers could suck on a bullet like a cough drop ...but why? Flavor? I don't think so.

I'm kind of surprised this idea of "biting the bullet" as anything more than an expression has gotten this far.

 

[redbob]

As gross as it may sound, I would think that carnivorous animals would be especially attracted to the scent of human flesh if the bullets has passed through a body. Also, hogs especially were known to eat human bodies left on a battlefield and this might explain the chew marks.

 

[Patrick H]

Everyone is making sense with the pig / rodent explanation for the bite marks. But the human "biting the bullet" theory makes a much better cocktail hour show-and-tell.

 

[Waterloo50]

Whatever you read, a hard metal bullet is not a chewable item for humans. As humans ourselves we inherently know this, right? How many of us have attempted to bite down on a softer-than-lead Jaw Breaker candy ball? (btw given that brand name for a reason).

Yes I suppose soldiers could suck on a bullet like a cough drop ...but why? Flavor? I don't think so.

I'm kind of surprised this idea of "biting the bullet" as anything more than an expression has gotten this far.

Oh yeah, I wasn't saying it was my opinion, I was just pointing out that I'd read it here on CWT, just like this comment posted by another member, 'civil War soldiers like any soldiers were bored and many bullets were probably chewed as something to do. In the 1860s no one knew lead was bad for you remember. Also marching around often times with very little water readily available or an opportunity to stop and get some probably resulted in soldiers chewing bullets to keep their mouths from going dry.'
It's all here in this thread. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/bite-marks-in-bullets.92077/#post-753223

 

[byron ed]

Oh yeah, I wasn't saying it was my opinion, I was just pointing out that I'd read it here on CWT, just like this comment posted by another member, 'civil War soldiers like any soldiers were bored and many bullets were probably chewed as something to do. In the 1860s no one knew lead was bad for you remember. Also marching around often times with very little water readily available or an opportunity to stop and get some probably resulted in soldiers chewing bullets to keep their mouths from going dry.'It's all here in this thread. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/bite-marks-in-bullets.92077/#post-753223

My point was, regardless of any prior posts about it, it's not physically possible for a human to chew a bullet. So again, I'm surprised the topic has gotten this far, has any traction at all. Suck on a bullet maybe, but let's not suspend our human experience to suppose that somehow humans in the Victorian era could chew on a bullet.

There's a cut-and-dried answer to the OP: This was not a bullet chewed by a soldier. What favor to the OP is there in playing it out beyond that?

 

[Waterloo50]

My point was, regardless of any prior posts about it, it's not physically possible for a human to chew a bullet. So again, I'm surprised the topic has gotten this far, has any traction at all. Suck on a bullet maybe, but let's not suspend our human experience to suppose that somehow humans in the Victorian era could chew on a bullet.

There's a cut-and-dried answer to the OP: This was not a bullet chewed by a soldier. What favor to the OP is there in playing it out beyond that?

Agreed, I shall say nothing more on the matter, I'm going to bite the proverbial bullet as it were....

 

[8thFlorida]

You might be interested in this previous thread. It has been argued and discussed previously.

Bite Marks on Confederate Roundball/ Olustee | Small Arms & Edged Weapons

I recently discovered alleged bite marks on two roundballs from the Battle of Olustee. I would appreciate any feedback or methods for determining human bite marks from the Civil War period. I also have a piece of melted lead that seems to have been used for biting during surgeries as well...

civilwartalk.com

 

[Tom Hughes]

As gross as it may sound, I would think that carnivorous animals would be especially attracted to the scent of human flesh if the bullets has passed through a body. Also, hogs especially were known to eat human bodies left on a battlefield and this might explain the chew marks.

That's an interesting thought.

 

[Tom Hughes]

Several comments on this thread about how hard a bullet is. Actually, a lead bullet isn't that hard. It's a soft metal. And it's soft for a reason.
The REAL danger to humans biting lead might be the danger of getting lead poison. Of course, they didn't know about such things during the ACW.
Lead was a superior art medium for carving, whittling and mashing into poker chips, I.D. disks, etc.
I'm sure there were stone soldiers that chewed on them as well...for whatever reason. Heck, in my generation, I knew people that would chew tree sap like you would a piece of gum. Not that I tried but it was fairly common.
Just my thoughts.