They simply blow apart when leaving the cannon, acting like a horrific giant shotgun. (Giving "double cannister" meant two of these were loaded end to end, such as against Picket's charge.) Therefore, these contain no explosive charge. The powder charge first went into the cannon as a bag and then the cannister was put into the tube. This is made of tinned sheet iron, filled with tiers of large lead balls packed in sawdust. It is amazing that things like this actually survived in the ground for over 100 years! This is a Federal 3" Hotchkiss cannister found in Spanish Fort, Alabama area, one of the 1865 engagements of the late war. Occasionally, one would become disagreeable and blow up a farmer when his tractor prongs banged its fuze directly. For years after the Civil War, Southern farmer would plow up live shells and parts, tossing them to the edge of their fields as bothersome junk. Shells were often taken away or tossed into creeks and woods. We sometimes find mint or undamaged fuzes grouped at the former positions of artillery battles. In the nervousness of battle, items were often dropped and not collected later. Sometimes the nose section of a shell stayed intact as a large "frag" or fragment, having the fuze still threaded in it. The fuze is most often thrown off as a separate piece of high-velocity debris. One direction that they are propelled is forward, hitting the bottom of the fuze and denting it. Upon explosion, the iron balls in the bursting chamber spread out into the surroundings, acting as deadly shrapnel. However, this shell did explode, as the rounded dimples in the base of the fuze collar show. Detonation success rates for shells were quite variable from one type to another, ranging from 30% to 80%. It was screwed down into the threaded opening at the tip of a hollow shell and essentially acted as a path for an ignition spark to reach the gunpowder charge in the central bursting chamber.
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