C’mon, man!
Officials Plead for Consumers to NOT Recycle Live Cannonballs
warhistoryonline / Jun 18, 2020 / Craig BowmanWorkers at the Kent County Recycling Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, got a lot more than they bargained for when a Civil War cannonball was delivered as part of a recycling load.
In an email sent from the Kent County Department of Public Works to Live Science, they said that the recycling center was evacuated due to a cannonball being handed in for recycling.
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The relevant authorities attended the recycling center, and on examining the cannonball, they determined that it fell into the category of ‘live ordnance’ and ordered the center evacuated until it could be dealt with.
In their report, the police stated that the cannonball measured 6 inches or 15 centimeters in diameter and weighed six pounds.
The Michigan State Police Bomb Squad was called to the scene, and they safely removed the cannonball.
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Phil Skaggs, the Kent County Commissioner, wanted to make sure that residents of Kent Country got the message loud and clear that this type of recycling was not acceptable. He posted, “Just to be clear: DO NOT RECYCLE CANNONBALLS FROM ANY WAR!” on his Facebook page.
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In recent years there have been examples of Civil War munitions causing problems. In 2008 a Virginia Civil War enthusiast, Sam White, was killed when the cannonball he was restoring exploded.
He was working in the driveway of his home when the 75-pound cannonball exploded, killing him instantly and blasting shrapnel into the porch of a house a quarter of a mile away.
The pedantic war geek in me wants to say that if the cannonball is solid shot, then it’s perfectly fine to recycle it, but I don’t know my artillery well enough to know when explosive shot came into common use.
Obviously the 75-lb shot was not solid, but I dunno if a shot as small as 6 lbs. would have had the explosive, juicy, citrus-flavored center.
Well it was at least available by the War of 1812. “the bombs bursting in air” and all that.
Common use, though… yeah don’t know on that one either.
6 pounds? Isn’t that grapeshot? I very much doubt those ever did, at least in that era. I’m reasonably certain 20 and 30 pound solids had shell variants, and obviously larger ones did too. But I doubt the ‘tiny’ ones did.
The naval historian Drachinifel over on YouTube has a series of videos on the history of naval artillery, and the latest — “The development of the Naval Shell – Stop poking holes in my ship!” probably has the answer, but it’s a 48-minute long video.
Drach, though, is one of the few people who I would sit still that long for. His videos are amazing.
I’ve seen Drachinifel videos on the Pacific War. Very informative stuff.
(P.S.: Just searched his name on YouTube — had no idea at all that he had that many videos. YouTube tends to move on and suggest other producers’ videos.)
Spokesperson Kim Deal was not able to comment after a failed microphone check.