What size were small cannon balls early in the war?

peteanddelmar

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Location
Missouri
I went to a friend's house today and talked about the Carthage, MO battle. We both lived there at one time. Me on Dry Fork him 1 mile north of town near a landmark known as Kendrick House.

He then plunked a heavy iron ball into my hand about 3" around and said he found it in his yard 35 years ago while planting a tree. Under about 6 inches of soil.

He just assumed it was a cannon ball.

Is that the right size for Missouri State Guard or Union Sigel's cannon?

Around 5 pounds, 31/2 inches around.

Philip
 
I went to a friend's house today and talked about the Carthage, MO battle. We both lived there at one time. Me on Dry Fork him 1 mile north of town near a landmark known as Kendrick House.

He then plunked a heavy iron ball into my hand about 3" around and said he found it in his yard 35 years ago while planting a tree. Under about 6 inches of soil.

He just assumed it was a cannon ball.

Is that the right size for Missouri State Guard or Union Sigel's cannon?

Around 5 pounds, 31/2 inches around.

Philip
Sounds like a six pounder shot. 3.6 inches in diameter, 6.1 lbs.

Lots of those around in the tulles. Phased out in the major battles.
 
Sounds like a six pounder shot. 3.6 inches in diameter, 6.1 lbs.

Lots of those around in the tulles. Phased out in the major battles.

That would be it then. This site was a part of the running Battle of Carthage(or Dry Fork) AND also contested a few years later when IIRC confederate cavalry leader Gen. Jo Shelby shortly occupied what was left of Carthage and based his men at the Kendrick House about 2 miles north of town. When Federals engaged him it was called the Second Battle of Carthage, locally.
I don't know of course which battle produced this ball.
But what are the odds to find it 120 years later while planting a tree?

And what's a tulles? A net?
 
Never heard that.
Never heard "We live out in the tulies"? "We're not exactly on the end of the earth, but we can see it from here"? "Boondocks"? "Flyover country"?

Much of my time in Missouri was outside the hamlet of O'Fallon. (A few miles west of St. Charles which was a few miles west of suburban St. Louis.

Now, to get back to the cannon balls, what boggled me is how very little larger the 12-pounder is than the 6-pounder.

Western, particularly Confederate, forces kept the 6-pounder around a lot longer than the Eastern armies. Would you believe that there wasn't a single, Union 6-pounder at Gettysburg? There were still a couple on the Confederate side.

I once stopped at a reenactment in Iowa and talked to an artillery reenactor who serviced a 6-pounder. He was dressed in blue and said their unit was in the movie, "Gettysburg." I frowned at him and he immediately knew why. "We portrayed Confederates," he said.

Seems that the Trans-Mississippi armies got the discarded 6-pounders.
 
6 pounders were sold or case shot with Borman fuses. Union used them extensively until the 6 pounders were taken out of service.
 
Tulies is a term meaning in the middle of no where. Interestingly enough, it has a long pedigree. The Romans used the term " ultimata Thule" to describe a place to the far north that was desolate, primitive and by extension not worth the effort to conquer.
 
Not to derail the topic, but can someone tell me why some artillery pieces are referred to as 'pounders' and some are referred to as such and such 'inch', for instance, a 12 pounder rifled cannon vs. a 6 inch mortar, or any number of different combinations.
 
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