Vicksburg MS area - NEED HELP

[rockyredbaron]

Got a friend who's in the area..believe he has unearthed a huge cannon ball..as he says is abour 15-20 inches in diameter...how to get it out of the ground is another story..not sure where exactly he is in the area but he's workin by himself..I suggested to him to unearth it..take some photos and go from there to identify it ..exactly what it is ..I told him to be careful digging it..as it may explode..not a good thing !!! He's so pumped up he's not thinking straight...he also found some type of metal perhaps a buckle with "CS" on it..also a button of some sort. Will try to post some pics when available. In the meantime, if there is anyone in the Vicksburg MS area that can perhaps help on any of this would be appreciated.

 

[ThatCannonballGuy]

I suggest you click on Page 2 of this specific forum-area of Findmall, and scroll down until you get to the thread titled "Here's the cannon ball, Dave" (started by "don in ma"). He recently dug a 15-inch solid-shot. In that thread, he got some good advice for what to do (and not do) about getting it out of the ground. : )

I know about Vicksburg artillery. The biggest cannonball used there was a 13-inch Mortar shell (and from your description, that's what your friend has found). It is QUITE valuable ...so yes, it's worth digging.

AND, please advise him to NOT "publicize" his find. People used to say "Loose lips sink ships" for a reason! : ) The less folks around Vicksburg that hear about your friend's shell, the better off he'll be.

The standard weight for a civil-war 13-inch Mortar shell is 210 pounds.

Your friend's shell was fired from a yankee "Mortar Raft" (quite large) anchored in the nearby Mississippi River. (The Confederates did not have any 13-inch mortars, so that shell HAS to be yankee-fired.)

Lastly... though it is indeed an explosive shell, your friend need not be concerned about it exploding while he's digging it - or moving it home. The 13-inch Mortar shell was made to use a large simple wooden fuze-plug, which has almost certainly rotted and leaked groundwater into the shell's powder-cavity. So for the moment, moving the ball is fine. In all the history of metal-detecting relics, not even once has a CIVIL-WAR shell blown up while being dug ...or even while being transported. I repeat: Not a single one, in tens-of-thousands of diggings and transportations of CIVIL-WAR (and earlier-era) shells.

Your friend is far-far-far more in danger of getting a serious hernia from his discovery than a boom.

The "Bang" problem comes later on. More than one or two people have come gotten a civil-war shell to explode by:
(1) putting it in a hot oven or a fire, or
(2) drilling into it to try to deactivate it.

Do NOT inform the police or other authorities. They'll confiscate the shell. For deactivation, contact a relic-digging professional deactivator. There are some of those available. I'd do the deactivation for you, but I'm a loooong way from Vicksburg. ;-)

Regards,
TheCannonballGuy (Pete George)

 

[rockyredbaron]

As it turns out, what he thought was a cannonball, turns out to be the cannon !!! however, the cannon is not intact..only about half of it came out of the ground. He did find several other artifacts...as I mentioned in the previous post. I personally haven't seen any of these artifacts, but will most likely later on today. I will take some pictures of all of them in hopes that someone can identify them. I am wondering since these were all found in the city limits of Vicksburg, MS, would they be related to the "Battle of Vicksburg", and was that part of the Civil War era, or some other conflict. Guess we need to do some serious research. It appears that all these finds are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[diggercorvette]

Hi rockyredbaron, I live in the Vicksburg area and would be glad to help. You can contact me at diggercorvette@yahoo.com