Loading Cotton Onto Vessels By Hand... 450 Lbs A Bale???

When you mention Cotton Clads , the Battle of Galveston usually comes to mind. I'm sure this form of "Armor" was used in other battles as well. Any examples out there?

At the first battle of Lexington, MO bales of hemp were soaked in a river overnight and then used as moveable barricades by MO state Confederate forces. The city hall still has a cannonball wedged in its tower that was put there originally during the battle.
 
At the first battle of Lexington, MO bales of hemp were soaked in a river overnight and then used as moveable barricades by MO state Confederate forces. The city hall still has a cannonball wedged in its tower that was put there originally during the battle.

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Here are a couple of pictures of the courthouse from when I was there in 2017:

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As NH Girl said when moving things moving heavy weight using your head can make the difference between tired and exhausted.
All you need to lift something with a capstan is two pulleys, placed to lift the load by whatever way you have available.
I have a capstan that was used to move buildings on rollers using dead mans which are logs buryed crossways in the ground with something tied in the middle holding a pulley and pulley on the load, just add a pulley to a on the load and one to anouthr ancore
 
It would also seem that the more compact a bale was, the less oxygen would be distributed among the cotton. A bag of loose cotton would probably have more air/oxygen in between cotton strands or fibers. And really, pound for pound, a bag would take up a lot more room than a bale.
Cotton was prone to catching fire. It was long believed that cotton was likely to catch fire if it got wet. A wet bale needed to be unpacked, spread out and dried before being repacked and pressed. If not, it was considered damaged, worth less, and was potentially dangerous to a ship, train, wharf, or shed in which it was located when spontaneous combustion set it afire. Modern cotton industry experiments seem to have disproven this, although modern cotton fires continue to cause tremendous damage. More densely packed bales were found to be less likely to catch fire. During the Civil war cotton fires in Wilmington and Bermuda destroyed large parts of the waterfronts.
 
Cotton was prone to catching fire. It was long believed that cotton was likely to catch fire if it got wet. A wet bale needed to be unpacked, spread out and dried before being repacked and pressed. If not, it was considered damaged, worth less, and was potentially dangerous to a ship, train, wharf, or shed in which it was located when spontaneous combustion set it afire. Modern cotton industry experiments seem to have disproven this, although modern cotton fires continue to cause tremendous damage. More densely packed bales were found to be less likely to catch fire. During the Civil war cotton fires in Wilmington and Bermuda destroyed large parts of the waterfronts.
It's dust particles when mixed with just the right quantity of air which will explode. Cotton, talcum powder, flour and sawdust include the most common ones. I saw the huge flourmill "Pledges" in Ashford, Kent go up like a volcano. Luckily it was at the end of the day so the plant had shut down so only the security staff were on. It tuned out that the external ventilation system had become blocked but that the internal fans were still running. Add a very hot summer evening to an overheating very large space and BOOM !
 
Cotton was prone to catching fire. It was long believed that cotton was likely to catch fire if it got wet. A wet bale needed to be unpacked, spread out and dried before being repacked and pressed. If not, it was considered damaged, worth less, and was potentially dangerous to a ship, train, wharf, or shed in which it was located when spontaneous combustion set it afire. Modern cotton industry experiments seem to have disproven this, although modern cotton fires continue to cause tremendous damage. More densely packed bales were found to be less likely to catch fire. During the Civil war cotton fires in Wilmington and Bermuda destroyed large parts of the waterfronts.
iNTERESTING. Adm Porter ordered one of the Ellet's to wet down the cotton bales on the Queen of the West before going into action off Vicksburg.
 
The amount of labor intensive work expended in moving tonnage, such as cotton, but more so on heavy guns and artillery placements, just overwhelms my senses of belief. It is the inestimable utterance of 'I cannot believe what I see' that attracts me so much to this mortifying era. Or better yet, 'That can't float'! Curious what amount cotton weight increases when saturated; anybody know?
Lubliner.
 
I wonder if any of you guys or gals have ever loaded bales of bermuda straw? Pretty heavy back in the 70's for me.

How heavy are the bales? I used to do haying with my father back in the late 60s and early 70s. The bales of regular hay (in New England) were 50 to 60 lbs. I don't know what bermuda straw is.
 
Bales were typically 450 or 500 pounds, yes. The exact weight did not matter because they were all marked, and the-weighed several times as they made their way from the gin, to the press, to the warehouse, on board ship, etc.
 
True enough. No two bales of cotton weigh exactly the same. But they are roughly 500 pounders though. I worked in a gin 50 years ago. An alarm of some kind went off at the exact moment when 500 lbs. of cotton was reached in the press. Press hands then walked over to the press , flipped a switch or two and turned the press 180 degrees . Human error , human speed or lack there of, whatever. It all depended how fast we could turn the press around and start another bale on the other side that determined how many more pounds of cotton were "tromped" into the finished bale. Depending on how slow or fast we were some bales got up tp 530 lbs. I got the big head that year. Press hands got $1.65. The year before I was a Suction hand at $1.50
 
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