[TheForge] Re: Interesting iron object

[Mike Spencer]

Grant> What you are describing might be a projectile fired in a
Grant> Coehorn mortar (18th C.)  These projectiles had a wooden base
Grant> held in place with iron strapping.

Ah!  A sabot.  Using "sabot" and "Coehorn" as google keys, I found
some relevant pics.  Thanks for the pointer!

These fragments are from 9-1/2" or 10" diameter shells -- calculated from
measurements, then checked with a cutout template -- and the larger
one would have weighed over 100#.  That wouldn't have been fired from
a field piece.

The US Civil War didn't penetrate to Nova Scotia :-) but a bit over a
century earlier, Lord Jeffrey Amherst laid siege to Fortress
Louisbourg on Cape Breton.

   After eleven days, on June 19 [1758], the British artillery
   batteries were in position and the orders were given to open fire
   on the French. The British battery consisted of seventy cannon and
   mortars of all sizes. Within hours the guns had destroyed walls and
   partially destroyed several buildings.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_Louisbourg

But that was the *second* siege of Louisbourg.  The Brits took it from
the French in 1745 but had to give it back after the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

    ...the French fended off invasion until May 18 [1745] when the New
    Englanders changed tactics and laid siege to the town.  During the
    next forty-seven days, British forces built their own batteries
    outside Louisbourg's defences and used them as platforms to strafe
    the area inside the walls.  Pepperrell later estimated that about
    9,000 cannon shot and 600 mortar bombs were fired: "Never was a
    place so mauled with cannon and shells."
    
    http://fortress.uccb.ns.ca/timeline/1780.htm

Wouldn't surprise me if these fragments came from there.  The fortress
and settlement has been excavated by archaeologists and partially
restored and is a national park but much surrounding land is, I think,
still privately owned and the restoration took a couple of decades
(from 1961), plenty of time for some fragments to make their way to me
on the South Shore.  And, as far as I know, these were the only major
artillery battles fought in Nova Scotia.

I'll keep looking to see if I can find a picture or description of
attaching a sabot with an iron pin.

Tnx,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^