Two say Civil War-era device that prompted evacuation not land mine after all

Researchers look at blasted pieces

A Little Rock Air Force Base EOD team loads into their vehicle on Woodbeery Street what was initially believed to have been an old cannonball or landmine found on an excavation site near Danville.  (The Sentinel-Record/Richard Rasmussen))
A Little Rock Air Force Base EOD team loads into their vehicle on Woodbeery Street what was initially believed to have been an old cannonball or landmine found on an excavation site near Danville. (The Sentinel-Record/Richard Rasmussen))

HOT SPRINGS -- A Civil War-era device found near Danville by a Hot Springs man that prompted the evacuation Thursday of a Hot Springs neighborhood was "definitely not a land mine," the Magnolia station archaeologists for the Arkansas Archeological Survey said Monday.

Carl Drexler and Elizabeth Horton, Toltec Mounds station archaeologists, on Monday recovered three-quarters of the device at the Garland County Landfill, where it was destroyed Thursday by members of the Little Rock Air Force Base Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team.

Drexler said they will reach out to colleagues and conduct research before making a final determination about the exact nature of the device.

"It is solid all the way through so it is not a land mine," Drexler said. "We are not entirely sure what it is. It could be a cannonball or something else."

Matt Bell of Hot Springs found the device last Wednesday while excavating in an area near a creek feeding into the Petit Jean River outside Danville in Yell County and, believing it to be a Civil War cannonball, took it to the Civil War Museum West in Hot Springs last Thursday.

Jeremy Luckett, the museum's director and curator, noted that a stub on top of the device appeared to be a pressure plate that detonates when weight is placed on it, and identified the device as possibly a land mine used by the Confederacy.

That revelation prompted an evacuation by Hot Springs police of Woodberry Street after Bell took it back to his residence until the Air Force team could remove it for safe disposal.

Over the next few weeks, Drexler said researchers will clean the dirt from the fragments and reassemble the device to see what portion they recovered.

"We will look at its shape and characteristics and determine what it is. We will try to figure out what was going on in the Danville area during the war," Drexler said.

Under Arkansas law, the fragments are the property of the state, and could potentially be placed in museum displays and used for other educational purposes, according to Drexler.

John Wideman, co-author, with Mike Kochan, of Civil War Torpedoes: A History of Improvised Explosive Devices in the War Between the States, said Monday that "most people are completely unaware that land mines were used extensively in the Civil War," noting some were fired by electricity and that "more ships were sunk with naval mines [then called torpedoes] than were sunk in combat."

He said the devices were called torpedoes, subterra shells or "infernal machines" and the term "land mine" did not come along until much later. "They were used throughout the war almost exclusively by the Confederacy," he said.

Wideman said the most common type were "condemned artillery shells," which could not be used safely in artillery pieces "for one reason or another" such as being "out of round" or "oversized." The shells were hollow, contained an explosive charge and shattered in fragments. Shot (round ball, cannonballs) were solid metal and simply battered the target. Land mines used shells, not shot, he said.

"Condemned shells were useless to the artillery. So, enterprising individuals realized that because they were ready, with a wooden plug in the fuse hole, all that needed to be done was replace the wooden plug with some kind of fuse capable of being actuated by human or animal force," he said.

"There were a variety of fuses," Wideman said. "Some you step on, some you pull a tripwire. Some were mechanical, some were chemical, some electrical. They ranged from locally rigged to machine shop produced."

Wideman said the most common land mines used a 24-pound shell, which were used extensively in the Eastern operations. He said 32-pounders were "extremely rare," but noted "artillery of all sizes were used if they could be obtained."

He said the fact that Bell determined the device weighed 31.6 pounds "is about right for a 32-pounder. The rust coat didn't look that thick and it would have lost weight through corrosion over the years. When shells corrode, they break off in layers and reduce weight."

He said the use of a land mine in Arkansas would be "a rarity but not impossible." He said, "I am not familiar with any such use, but I know better than to say they were never used. The use of a 32-pounder would be a rarity, but not impossible. The two things together would be very dispositive of a land mine, but not impossible."

Wideman noted the power of the potential explosion was relative. "Most of the time, these rounds had an ounce or 2 at most of gunpowder in them. This was referred to as the bursting charge, the object being to break the ball up into shards and not destroy it completely. Some even had small musket balls in them embedded in a sulfur matrix."

He said any explosion would depend upon the powder being in perfect condition, noting black powder does not degrade significantly. "If it gets wet it is useless, but you can dry it out and use it after it dries. This is the reason [Civil War] ordnance is so dangerous. It can explode in 2016 just like it did in 1863."

He said as with all shrapnel-related explosions, it is recommended to keep a distance of about 200 yards. "The danger is from a piece of shell hitting someone, either from a direct line or falling from the sky." He said one can never be sure just how far a piece of shrapnel may go and it can cause property damage if it hits something.

He stressed that Civil War ordnance "can explode if handled improperly. When you pick up such ordnance it is between you and God if you are going to survive the situation."

State Desk on 04/06/2016

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