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Rounds Of The Razorbacks
You Want Weird Bullets? Then Quit Your
Job and Move To Arkansas !
By Steve Burgess
(Originally Published in American
Digger Magazine)
Click
on the photos to enlarge
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Relic
Hunting in Arkansas has always been a little bit different. We have
some big Union camps here, and some fair size Confederate ones.
Thus, a serious relic hunter can find artifacts dropped by both
Union and Confederate Soldiers. Unfortunately, nice brass items
have always been scarce around here, including Confederate Government
and State Issue buttons.... durn it! If you're looking to build
an extensive Confederate button collection detecting in Razorback
country, you'll need to start at about age 6, quit school, and forget
about ever getting a job. You'll need to be swinging that coil for
at least 40 hours a week to find much good brass. Nevertheless,
many of us die hard diggers have been at it for years.
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One
thing that becomes immediately apparent, is the amount of
dropped, excavated bullets that are not identified in McKee&
Mason's, Civil War Projectiles II. Confederate camps
in Arkansas occupied from 1862 on, often hold, for lack of
a better word, "weird" bullets. I think MM's "Bullet
Bible" was the first book I got when I started relic
hunting. I thought it was cool too, when I dug my first .69
Belgian, first Enfield, first Sharps carbine bullet and other
identified examples listed in the book. We would spend a day
digging and run home to see exactly what it was we had excavated.
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But
then one day, just a year or two after becoming engrossed with this
new found pursuit, a "weird" bullet surfaced. I raced
home and it was not in the book, but it looked Civil War. It had
a nice white patina, two-rings, .50 caliber, but could it be some
modern muzzle loading deer round? All I could do was hope not. That
bullet turned out to be what is now known as a Confederate, Cosmopolitan
Type II .... a very scarce bullet to dig. That was just the first
of a dozen or more "weird" bullets I was to pop out of
the ground over the next few years. Even now, after 23 years of
digging in camps of a few companies, all the way up to division
camps, those "weird" bullets still surface. With that
in mind, I'd like to illustrate six examples of odd Civil War bullets
from Arkansas. These were found in Confederate sites here, are rarely
seen, and we think, qualify as "weird."
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"Cove
Creek Minie"
Those few who have excavated this first example tend to call
it a "Cove Creek Minie," and so far that name has
stuck. The few known examples were all excavated in Confederate
Camps. This 3-ring bullet has a medium deep plug base, with
thin cavity walls, and uneven spacing of the rings. The shallow
rings are fairly tight together, low on the body of the bullet,
and with a prominent teat it appears to be nose cast. The
example pictured has a diameter of .565 and a length of 1.014.
One of these was discovered years ago, and it was not until
recently that a few more have been found. |
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| "Cove
Creek Minie" |
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| "Arkansas
Austrian" |
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"Arkansas
Austrian"
This second bullet is so "weird" we weren't sure
what to call it, but with a vague resemblance to an Austrian
pattern, we have dubbed it the "Arkansas Austrian."
Dug in a campsite frequented by both Union and Confederate
troops in 1862, it is so far, the only example recovered.
The three deep slanted rings go more than halfway up the body
of the bullet. It has a deep conical cavity, with thick even
sidewalls, and faint mold
markings. Measurements are .561 diameter, with a length of
1.000 inches.
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"Prairie
Grove Gardner"
The small caliber of this next bullet leads one to believe
it is a carbine bullet, but due to the nature of it's construction,
we are calling it a "Prairie Grove Gardner." There
have only been six recovered that we know of, and all were
on the Prairie Grove, Arkansas, Battlefield, on private property.
This little bullet has two very faint rings, with a deep Gardner
type base, and teat in the bottom of the base, with no apparent
mold marks. I say it is a Gardner type base because you can
plainly see the separation on the cavity walls, as is found
on a swaged and crimped Gardner. But, this one gets even weirder!
With a loupe, the remnants of brown linen can be seen in the
crimped area. All the known examples exhibit this bit of linen
caught in the crimp. Measurements are .465 diameter, and .941
in length. These are found where Confederate General Hindman's
Texas troops were positioned.
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| "Prairie
Grove Gardner" |
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| "Overgrown
Colt" |
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"Overgrown
Colt"
This next bullet may not be as weird as we think, but here
it is anyway. This one almost appears to be an overgrown
Colt type bullet, with rebated base. But, with a diameter
of .520 and length of .852, that's not likely! It has a
smooth flat base, with just a hint of a raised ring above
the rebate, it resembles M & M #475 which is for Sharps
Carbine, with linen cartridge. But with a diameter of .562,
the M & M #475 is considerable larger than this example
at .520. Another Prairie Grove bullet, and we can't figure
out what to call it.
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"State
Guard Minies"
I am going to cover these last two bullets together, since
both are only dug in specific camps of Sterling Price's, Missouri
State Guard. Because of that fact, I like to call them "State
Guard Minies," although Mini- Minies might be more appropriate.
If you saw the picture of the first one, without anything
for scale, you might think it was a regular high-base .58
caliber. But it is not. This little chunk of CS lead measures
just .426 in diameter, by .791 in length! Although there is
a flat spot that very much resembles a side cast mark on the
nose, we cannot see any evident mold marks. It is high base
with a standard looking conical cavity, and also normal appearing
cavity walls. It just for all the world appears to be a "Mini"
Minie bullet.
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| "State
Guard Minie" |
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| "State
Guard Minie" |
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Lastly,
here is the "Mini" minie's little brother. Again
very much resembling a standard 3-ring minie ball, but looks
like it could have been the star of the movie, "Honey
I Shrunk The Bullets." This tiny little 3-ringer measures
only .382 in diameter, by .681 in length. It also has a regular
conical cavity, with fairly thick cavity walls. There has
only been a handful of these bullets excavated, and all have
come from the same camp of the Missouri State Guard. We dig
a lot of the .69 caliber 3-ringers here in Arkansas, and I
think everybody enjoys them, because they are such a large,
impressive round, but everybody agrees that excavating these
tiny little minies is big fun too!
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There
are many other "weird" bullets excavated here in Arkansas,
with the so-called, "Arkansas Hawg" bullet perhaps being
the best known. But, a lot of those were documented in some excellent
articles several years ago, by our fellow Arkansas bullet hounds.
As I said earlier, building a Confederate button collection here
is very hard work, but if you like finding rare, "weird"
bullets, you'll probably have a good day digging!
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All
Photo Publication Rights Reserved
Steve Burgess/American Digger Magazine |
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