Both smoothbore and rifled guns could shoot the same type of ammunition; solid, shell, case and canister (or grape).Solid shot (a bolt if from a rifled gun) was used to batter fortifications, against wagons, buildings, or troops. In the latter use, the smoothbore was superior because the ball could be skipped across a battlefield, inflicting casualties over a large area of the field. At Gettysburg, an officer is said to have observed a ball bouncing along far in the rear, and stuck his foot out to stop it, having his foot removed for his troubles. Shell were hollow projectiles filled with gunpowder, and exploded by a fuse. Case shot was a hollow projectile with thinner walls than the common shell, having a bursting charge and filled with smaller balls (the Union usually used lead balls, the south iron; in a pinch minie balls were used). This was exploded by a timed fuse while still in the air so that all the shot inside and pieces of the shell dispersed and flew to the target. Canister was a cylinder filled with balls packed in sawdust; when the gun was fired, the cylinder disintegrated and the balls fanned out as if from a giant shotgun. The 12 pound Napoleon had a charge of 27 one and a half inch iron balls; 12 pound howitzer had 48. The last rallying cry of a battery under siege was "Double canister at ten yards!". Rifled guns could shoot canister, but it was said that the rifling gave a twist to the shot which made it spread in an erratic spiral. Later designs had a rigid iron container for the canister balls which would not spread into the rifling to try and keep the pattern form spiraling. There was also a design which had a charge in the canister to go off after the round left the tube, adding to the range of the balls. Grape was 9 larger balls, held together by iron plates, or covered in canvas and tied with heavy twine (quilted grape).

Spherical shot for smoothbores were attached to a wooden sabot. The powder bag could be tied to a groove in the sabot so the round could be loaded in one piece, and this arrangement also kept the fuses of exploding shells pointed toward the muzzle (if the fuse was pointed down, it could be driven into the fuse hole and explode the shell as the propellant charge was fired).

Rifled cannon needed the projectile to engage the rifling to be accurate, but it must be small enough to load from the muzzle on the battlefield. This was accomplished in different ways, which fall into three major categories: expansion - where a ring or cup of soft metal (lead, copper) expanded at the base of the round by the gases at firing; forcing cone - where the rear of the projectile (paper-mache, lead ring -iron cup) was forced toward the front, expanding it into the rifling; and shaped - where the projectile was the same shape but a smaller diameter, and had ridges or flanges which fit into the rifling.

In September 1864 the Ordnance Board ordered that Parrott projectiles be used exclusivley in Parrott guns, and Hotchkiss projectiles when Parrott were exhausted; Shenkl projectiles were forbidden from Parrott guns; and Parrott projectiles were forbidden from 3 inch Ordnance Rifles.

PRIMERS AND FUSES
When the gun was loaded, and ready to be fired, the #4 man of the gun crew would insert a friction primer into the vent, attach the hook of the lanyard to the loop of the primer, back away the 12 feet that the length of the cord was and wait for the command to fire given by the gunner. Primers were most often made of a long and a short copper tube, soldered together at right angles. The longer tube was filled with gunpowder and sealed at the bottom with wax, and went into the vent. On the top, the shorter tube was filled with a friction mixture, and a twisted wire was inserted into it, the end of which formed a loop. When the wire was pulled through the friction mixture, the powder was ignited, shooting a flame down into the powder bag firing the gun.

Time fuses were mostly made of paper cylinders packed with a slow burning powder. There were markings for shortening the burning time marked on the fuses (there were also "fuse measures", a board with a groove for the fuse to sit in, with more accurate graduations). When the gunner established the range to the target, the #6 man would give him the corresponding elevation to use (from the Table of Fire glued inside the limber chest), and cut the fuse to the length required for the time of flight. The fuse, cut to the correct length, would be inserted into wooden or metallic fuse plugs, and inserted into the fuse hole of the projectile. For consistency, in late 1862, the Union had all paper time fuses manufactured at the Frankford Arsenal. The Bormann time fuse had a hole was punched into the top at a mark corresponding to the length of time wanted. This was more convenient, but not more accurate. There are existing specimens of Borman time fuses which were drilled out so that a paper fuse could be used. In both cases, the fuse was ignited by the flame of the propellant charge. (Confederate fuses were made at a variety of establishments to supply the need, and therefore varied in consistency.)

Rifled shells which were fitted with paper fuses sometimes did not have the fuse ignited by the propellant charge. There are some designs of rifled shell and case which had flame grooves up the side of the projectile so that the flame could ignite the fuse before the band was flared into the rifling. Projectiles could also be fitted with percussion or concussion fuses, but these were not as reliable. Percussion fuses had a movable piece with a nipple, onto which a percussion cap was placed. When the shell hit, the slider was thrown forward, detonating the cap against the anvil fixed in the fuse. This design didn't work reliably if the slider got cocked, or if the shell hit a glancing blow, not giving enough force to fire the cap. Concussion fuses were designed to go off upon hitting at any angle, but these were unpredictable and dangerous.

There were stories of troops being hit by shells fired by their own side which burst prematurely, and that no doubt happened, but many times it was the sabot, a piece of the rifling band or just a piece which broke off the shell as the cannon fired which struck those troops.

Sources:
Dean S. Thomas
Cannons, An Introduction to Civil War Artillery

C. Peter Jorgenson
Civil War artillery authority, and former Commander of the 10th Mass Battery, N-SSA, publisher of the Civil War News and The Muzzloading Artilleryman

John D. Billings
(A member of the 10th; also the author of Hard Tack and Coffee, a book of his experiences as a soldier in the Civil War)
The History of the Tenth Massachusetts Battery

Last Updated 14 April 2002

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