✅ SOLVED Civil War bullet mystery to separate the men from the boys!

[parsonwalker]

Found in yankee short-term camp with the items pictured here. Obviously a flattened 3-ringer. Almost certainly flattened on purpose. But HOW can one account for the cross-hatched pattern on BOTH sides of the flattened bullet?! Almost looks like wood gunstock checkering. NOT carved. Also, bonus points if you can identify the brass thing. I'm thinking kerosene lamp fuel cap?

 

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[Charlie P. (NY)]

Squeezed in a vice.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Charlie P. and I have the same basic theory, but he beat me to posting it because I had to reply to a PM Notification. I think your minie was squeezed in a vice between two pieces of fine-grained hardwood boards. I'm too tired at this hour (after midnight here in VA) to write a more-detailed explanation. I'll do better tomaorrow, after a good night's sleep.

 

[katdancing]

a thimble that was flattened?

 

[parsonwalker]

KAT - in the middel pic you can barely make out the 3 rings. It's not a thimble, I'm sure. Charlie and CBG, you are dead on! My Kepi is off to you! But no way between hardwood. The cross-hatch pattern is more defined than you can see in the photos. PERFECT for the "gripping crosshatch" of an iron vice. You got it for sure! Don't know why I didn't think of that!! I guess somebody found this bullet on the farm back in the day . . . had a little fun with it, and then tossed it. There was a large barn there (frequently had vices in barns!) and a tenant house. This one's SOLVED.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

I guessed the vice-squeezed bullet was compressed between two fine-grined hardwood boards (in the vice) because woodgrain's "grooves" are not spaced PERFECTLY evenly, and some of the impressions on the bullet seem not to be spaced perfectly evenly... while the grooves on a vice's jaws typically ARE spaced perfectly evenly. But since you say the bullet has crosshatching which doesn't show in the photo, and woodgrain of course doesn't have crosshatching, I'll agree with you that the impressions in the bullet were made by a vice's crosshatched metal jaws.

 

[BosnMate]

I have a couple of flattened bullets from stony ground that I'm sure were run over by a wagon or cannon. My swag is it was between boards and run over with a direct hit by a heavy wagon wheel, then got jostled around and the boards were run over again by a lighter wagon, or perhaps not a direct hit, off to the edge so the pressure wasn't as great. A vise is also possible, there could have been one in camp, but the only vise I can think of that followed the troops (there was also vice that followed the troops) would be on the farriers portable forge wagon.

 

[nhbenz]

Just a thought from someone who knows nothing about old bullets, and highly regards those who have weighed in: If a vise had a grooves on both jaws, the marks would match up from side to side, which they don't seem to do. Is it possible that (for whatever similar reason) this was whacked with a textured head (metal working) hammer? Thus the lighter portion of the cross hatching is from previous strikes? But then this is coming from a chronically sleep deprived new papa.

 

[QUICKSILVER (appletree)]

i would say vice to but leaning more toward pliers do to the small sections of diagonal lines, but that's my thoughts

 

[randazzo1]

OMG look at the size of those bullets. What caliber were they using in the civil war?

 

[parsonwalker]

Randazzo - Most common bullet size was .58 cal, which is what you see. There were some smaller, and .69 cal were used as well.