Mushroomed Minnie Balls

[upton j.]

Here's a couple from Antietam.

 

[Ethan S.]

Mushroomed bullets are my absolute favorite types of bullets. I can never get enough of them.

Here's some of mine from Gettysburg.

Culps Hill

Just West of Reynolds Woods.


I have many more, mostly from Chancellorsville. One of them appears to have hit flesh.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

What causes this?

 

[Ethan S.]

What causes this?

Hitting dirt mostly. Also caused by hitting flesh, and sometimes rocks. Trees work too...

 

[mikekj]

While dropped bullets are cool, these are real history, and underrated by collectors. These were touched, actually loaded and fired, by humans in war.

 

[upton j.]

If they were found at a hospital site they were probably extracted bullets.

 

[Ethan S.]

If they were found at a hospital site they were probably extracted bullets.

I do have one found by my dad, near a church at Chancellorsville. Possibly there was a field hospital there. I'll have to find a pic of the bullet I'm talking about tomorrow. It is unlike any other mushroomed bullet I've seen, in slickness on the mushroom end.

 

[Tom Hughes]

Nice fired rifle balls!

 

[UCVRelics]

If they were found at a hospital site they were probably extracted bullets.

Nice ones but one thing you will see on most bullets removed from a body is the cloth mark impressions on the mushroom side.

 

[upton j.]

Nice ones but one thing you will see on most bullets removed from a body is the cloth mark impressions on the mushroom side.

Back in the 80's I hunted the Samuel Poffenberger farm it was bordered by the smoketown rd.The morning of the battle there was a temporary hospital site there abt. a quarter mile behind the house along the smoketown rd next to the grove of trees. I found a mushroomed .58 with a pewter button embedded in the bottom of the bullet no doubt it was extracted from a soldier. I was just married and buying a house at the time so I sold it to the Farnsworth house museum in Gettysburg.The owner said he was putting it on display I guess they still have it there it's been about 30 yrs. I should have taken pics. of it.If I ever get back over to Gettysburg I'm going to try and find out if they still have it there and get pics.

 

[Ethan S.]

Nice ones but one thing you will see on most bullets removed from a body is the cloth mark impressions on the mushroom side.

Do have have a picture of one of these?

 

[KHyatt]

I saw a program, I think on what was then the Military Channel, about the American Revolution. As I recall they were digging on a battlefield (I don't recall which one) and picked up a musket ball that had a very clear impression of some poor soldier's two front teeth. It was a bit disturbing for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the realization that the ball had to have continued right through the soldier's skull to be picked up 200+ years later.