What is this? Monster Atlanta Frag?

[J.H. Moose]

Can anyone help me identify this shell frag? It was given to me as a gift by a friend of mine which is marked as being dug around Atlanta. At first I was bewildered by the size of the frag, I had never heard of such large ordnance being present in the Atlanta Campaign.

about as thick as the 100 pounder Parrott frags I have from Fort Fisher and is way bigger than the 30 pounder Parrot frags I have from Atlanta. (The frag on the right is a nose section from a 30lber)

What really interested me, however, is the this raised portion on the end of the frag which coincides with the interior wall of the frag widening, this leads me to believe that I'm dealing with a section towards the base of whatever kind of shell this could've been, I thought maybe a lathe dog of some kind but I have no clue what the raised portion could've been a part of.

According to the original owner this also isn't definitively from Atlanta as he sources his frags from two large buckets of untreated fragments, one bucket is Atlanta and one is Fort Fisher. According to him there's a good chance he might've made a mixup and painted "Atlanta" on this piece when it could've been from his Fort Fisher bucket (that makes more sense to me given the size)
What do y'all think? I ain't got a clue

 

[J.H. Moose]

Can anyone help me identify this shell frag? It was given to me as a gift by a friend of mine which is marked as being dug around Atlanta. At first I was bewildered by the size of the frag, I had never heard of such large ordnance being present in the Atlanta Campaign.
View attachment 506445
View attachment 506446
about as thick as the 100 pounder Parrott frags I have from Fort Fisher and is way bigger than the 30 pounder Parrot frags I have from Atlanta. (The frag on the right is a nose section from a 30lber)
View attachment 506447
What really interested me, however, is the this raised portion on the end of the frag which coincides with the interior wall of the frag widening, this leads me to believe that I'm dealing with a section towards the base of whatever kind of shell this could've been, I thought maybe a lathe dog of some kind but I have no clue what the raised portion could've been a part of.
View attachment 506448

View attachment 506449
According to the original owner this also isn't definitively from Atlanta as he sources his frags from two large buckets of untreated fragments, one bucket is Atlanta and one is Fort Fisher. According to him there's a good chance he might've made a mixup and painted "Atlanta" on this piece when it could've been from his Fort Fisher bucket (that makes more sense to me given the size)
What do y'all think? I ain't got a clue

Was doing some further digging and I've found the frag looks incredibly similar to the cross section of a CS 6.5 shell, could this be it or have I found a red herring?

 

[Tanglewood]

Atlanta native here. There were some large Confederate guns in the established forts facing west. There is a good map in the Atlas to Official Records. I personally am aware of only one 6.4 recovered, and it was an early find, a James shell. It was at the Atlanta Historical Society and was found at Davis Hill, which is on Bankhead Highway. There must be others, that's just one I know of. The Federal line ran along there. Some 20 pound Brooke shells have been recovered in the area. For the most part it is older homes on small lots, never conducive for shell hunting, and the few wooded areas have been hunted exhaustively. My father, born in 1920, grew up in the area, called Grove Park. The family attended Fortified Hills Baptist Church, so named because of the Federal earthworks, which were long gone by the time I came along.

The largest US artillery here was the 4.5 inch siege rifle. There have been Schenkl shells recovered on the west side of downtown, fired by those guns. I have a 4.5 Schenkl recovered near Georgia Tech, but your fragment looks too thick for that. The O.R.s state that Sherman had 30 pounder Parrott rifles transported in for the siege of Atlanta, but that is not correct, they were the 4.5 siege rifles.

I'm thinking Fort Fisher, because of the rarity of large shells from Atlanta, and also because iron dug here comes out in much better condition than along the coastal areas.

 

[J.H. Moose]

Atlanta native here. There were some large Confederate guns in the established forts facing west. There is a good map in the Atlas to Official Records. I personally am aware of only one 6.4 recovered, and it was an early find, a James shell. It was at the Atlanta Historical Society and was found at Davis Hill, which is on Bankhead Highway. There must be others, that's just one I know of. The Federal line ran along there. Some 20 pound Brooke shells have been recovered in the area. For the most part it is older homes on small lots, never conducive for shell hunting, and the few wooded areas have been hunted exhaustively. My father, born in 1920, grew up in the area, called Grove Park. The family attended Fortified Hills Baptist Church, so named because of the Federal earthworks, which were long gone by the time I came along.

The largest US artillery here was the 4.5 inch siege rifle. There have been Schenkl shells recovered on the west side of downtown, fired by those guns. I have a 4.5 Schenkl recovered near Georgia Tech, but your fragment looks too thick for that. The O.R.s state that Sherman had 30 pounder Parrott rifles transported in for the siege of Atlanta, but that is not correct.

I'm thinking Fort Fisher, because of the rarity of large shells from Atlanta, and also because iron dug here comes out in much better condition than along the coastal areas.

Very interesting, great to hear such insight from a local of the area. I had my doubts about such a large frag being found in Atlanta, thanks for the info!

 

[redbob]

I would lean more towards the Fort Fisher option.

 

[J.H. Moose]

I would lean more towards the Fort Fisher option.

That's what suspected too, seems the most plausible explanation. Do you think there's any way to tell what kind of shell it is? At first I would've just assumed parrott but it has this odd ledge on one end which looks like a band or lathe dog of some sort, I'm not exactly sure what it could be

I was guessing a CS 6.5" or 7" of some kind but that seemed a little too good to be true to me, that little ledge is really throwing me off