romeo-1 said:
Please educate me. Is this a banner find because it is a nicely carved bullet or is there significance to the acorn shape? It really is a beauty!
Both Romeo. Carved bullets are found in a ratio of about 1 to 200 that you dig here in Tennessee. Bored soldiers carved them in camps.
Just because you can see knife marks on them doesn't mean they were carved. You find more "whittled" than carved on bullets like a bullet cut in half. It's rare to find one like this as it happens to be the same shape as a U.S. CW "Corps" badge. The corps of the Union adopted symbols used as corps badges during the war. Note the page from Time Life Books that I attached. This one happens to be the same symbol of the U.S. 14th Corps which was stationed close by here early in the war. However as Zaxfire's info. shows, the 14th corps did not FORMALLY adopt the acorn as their corps badge until they were stationed near Chattanooga, TN (over 120 miles away) in late 1863. This camp was used in mid to late 1862. We will never know for sure who carved it. The "acorn" is .680 in. diameter. Most you see are carved from a .58 cal. 3 ring bullet so the relic dealers told me. Thanks for looking and HH, Quindy.