musket mini ball

[Jeffery Howle]

I found this while surface hunting. Was told its a 69 caliber mini ball These were used both in our country's revolution to be free of England as well a common load in the Civil war!

[painshill]

It’s not a mini ball Jeffery. It’s a smoothbore musket shot. That kind of shot might well have been used against us Brits or in the American Civil War, but the mini-ball (more correctly the Minié-bullet) quickly replaced shot after the Civil War broke out because it could be rifled for accuracy, loaded more rapidly and did more damage.
Although frequently bastardised to “mini” or “minie”, it’s actually named after its French inventor Claude-Étienne Minié. It didn’t exist at the time of the War of Independence in the late 1700’s. The design was first proposed in 1832 by John Norton and produced in prototype form in 1848 (in France), followed in around 1850 by Minié’s refinement of the design. Also, although referred to as a “ball” by Americans (because it replaced the long-familiar spherical shot), it was actually a cylindrical bullet with a conical nose, although still muzzle-loaded.
wiki entry here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini%C3%A9_ball

[Jeffery Howle]

As usual Rodger once again I am saying Thanks to you for letting me know what I have found. So is this musket shot old or something that could be modern?

[Ron Kelley]

Jeffery, For some years I cast my own round balls and shot them from my old Kentucky Long Rifle.
You can still purchase round balls from the sporting goods stores.
This is the melting pot, ladel, and mold that I use to cast round balls.

[painshill]

You're welcome as always. As Ron says, there are enthusiasts still using such weapons today but it has a healthy amount of oxidation and looks like it's been in the ground a while. The balance of probability is that it's early Civil War (in which case more likely Confed than Union), or predates the Civil War. I'm basing that view on numerical likelihood of finds. If you have any context for the find such as a known battle site (Civil War, War of Independence or conflict with Native Americans) then the probability goes up accordingly.
Incidentally, in the settler era, lead shot was used as a form of currency to overcome the shortage of small change, since it was something that almost everyone needed. Somewhere I have a copy of a British Parliamentary bill which legitimised their use and set a scale of values. I can't remember exactly, but it was something like 4 to the farthing (ie 16 to the penny) and that "no man shall be compelled to accept more than a shilling's worth"... which would be 192 shot if my memory is recalling the numbers correctly.

[OnewiththewilD]

heres a "mini" from virginia, a friend of mine gave it to me,his dad owns alot of land down there and he used to find alot of civil war stuff on his property.

[Jeffery Howle]

painshill wrote:

You're welcome as always. As Ron says, there are enthusiasts still using such weapons today but it has a healthy amount of oxidation and looks like it's been in the ground a while. The balance of probability is that it's early Civil War (in which case more likely Confed than Union), or predates the Civil War. I'm basing that view on numerical likelihood of finds. If you have any context for the find such as a known battle site (Civil War, War of Independence or conflict with Native Americans) then the probability goes up accordingly.
Incidentally, in the settler era, lead shot was used as a form of currency to overcome the shortage of small change, since it was something that almost everyone needed. Somewhere I have a copy of a British Parliamentary bill which legitimised their use and set a scale of values. I can't remember exactly, but it was something like 4 to the farthing (ie 16 to the penny) and that "no man shall be compelled to accept more than a shilling's worth"... which would be 192 shot if my memory is recalling the numbers correctly.

  Rodger
The city I live in was a trade port because of all the rivers we have here. It was bought from the NA and was named after the chief . City is Paducah. Chiefs name was paduke. We have the Tennessee River here..Ohio river the Cumberland river and the Mississippi river is not far from here. So being a river port it changed hands I believe a couple of times during the civil war. Not really any well known battles. But sure there was a few shots fired around here.

[OnewiththewilD]

awesome find by the way! almost forgot to mention that! probably took a good eye to spot it 

[Ron Kelley]

Hey Jeffery yes Jay is right: Sometimes we get sidetracked.
Looks like you have a real neat piece of American history there.
Good find and thanks for sharing it with us.

[painshill]

Yes, it is a neat find... but a little more side-tracking is in order.
Chickasaw sources assert that there never was a chief called Paduke or a tribe called the Paducahs and they have no words in their language which bear any resemblance to these names. The smart money says that Clark (of Lewis & Clark fame) who laid out the town, named it from the Spanish term “Padoucas” – the name by which they referred to the Commanches.
Kentucky may have been “neutral” during the Civil War, but Paducah certainly saw some action. Grant took the town not long after the war started in 1861 to maintain control of the mouth of the Tennessee river. The Confederates raided it twice in quick succession in 1864. On the first occasion they pillaged the town, took 50 prisoners and forced the remaining Union troops to retreat to the safety of their fort and gunboats. They only held the town for a day, but a second raid followed soon afterwards to capture horses that had been missed in the first raid. The horses were taken, the African-American force holding the fort defeated and the Union troops were generally distracted from any possibility of interfering in the simultaneous Confederate assault on the larger and more strategically important Fort Pillow on the Mississippi. The Confederates then pulled out, leaving the Union to re-occupy the town until the end of the War.
(and I'm not even American :dry: )

[Butch Wilson]

Painshill......Lordy !

[Jeffery Howle]

painshill wrote:

Yes, it is a neat find... but a little more side-tracking is in order. 
Chickasaw sources assert that there never was a chief called Paduke or a tribe called the Paducahs and they have no words in their language which bear any resemblance to these names.  hmy: The smart money says that Clark (of Lewis -and- Clark fame) who laid out the town, named it from the Spanish term “Padoucas” – the name by which they referred to the Commanches.
Kentucky may have been “neutral” during the Civil War, but Paducah certainly saw some action. Grant took the town not long after the war started in 1861 to maintain control of the mouth of the Tennessee river. The Confederates raided it twice in quick succession in 1864. On the first occasion they pillaged the town, took 50 prisoners and forced the remaining Union troops to retreat to the safety of their fort and gunboats. They only held the town for a day, but a second raid followed soon afterwards to capture
horses that had been missed in the first raid. The horses were taken, the African-American force holding the fort defeated and the Union troops were generally distracted from any possibility of interfering in the simultaneous Confederate assault on the larger and more strategically important Fort Pillow on the Mississippi. The Confederates then pulled out, leaving the Union to re-occupy the town until the end of the War.
(and I'm not even American  :dry: )

  Rodger
This time I will have to disagree with you. I was born here and lived here most of my life. There are statues and historical markers all over Paducah about Chief Paduke and have read a lot of history on this area...So I would like to ask you where you got your info that there was not a Chief Paduke and yes I knew there were Civil War battles here but said there was no really famous battles that people would have heard of. And I am American hmy:
If you know something about this city that I don't I sure would like to learn about it.

[painshill]

The full quote (from Wiki) is:
"Paducah was first settled as Pekin (a former name of Beijing, China) by James and William Pore c. 1821. The community – favorably located at the confluence of several waterways – occupied a site previously noted as a Chickasaw trading center. The town was laid out by William Clark (of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition) in 1827 and renamed Paducah. Although local lore long connected this to an eponymous Chickasaw chief "Paduke" and his tribe of "Paducahs", authorities on the Chickasaw have since made clear that there was never any chief or tribe of that name, anything like it, nor any words like them in the Chickasaw tongue. Instead, it is probable that Clark named the town for the Comanches (known at the time as the Padoucas, from a Spanish transcription of the Kaw Pádoka or Omaha Pádonka."
Wiki cites Robert Rennick’s 1987 book “Kentucky Place Names” published by the University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), Robert Rankin’s “English to Kanza Dictionary” and the online “Omaha & Ponca Digital Dictionary”.
I don't know it they're right, but it looks pretty convincing.

[Jeffery Howle]

painshill wrote:

The full quote (from Wiki) is:
"Paducah was first settled as Pekin (a former name of Beijing, China) by James and William Pore c. 1821. The community – favorably located at the confluence of several waterways – occupied a site previously noted as a Chickasaw trading center. The town was laid out by William Clark (of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition) in 1827 and renamed Paducah. Although local lore long connected this to an eponymous Chickasaw chief "Paduke" and his tribe of "Paducahs", authorities on the Chickasaw have since made clear that there was never any chief or tribe of that name, anything like it, nor any words like them in the Chickasaw tongue. Instead, it is probable that Clark named the town for the Comanches (known at the time as the Padoucas, from a Spanish transcription of the Kaw Pádoka or Omaha Pádonka."
Wiki cites Robert Rennick’s 1987 book “Kentucky Place Names” published by the University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), Robert Rankin’s “English to Kanza Dictionary” and the online “Omaha -and- Ponca Digital Dictionary”.
I don't know it they're right, but it looks pretty convincing.

  Ok Rodger I looked it up where you said on Wiki....I believe this is one of the cases do you believe what you read on the internet or what historians have said about a place. The internet is only as good as who put the info in. I find it hard to believe what I have learned all my life about my home town and all the historical markers around here are wrong. Why don't you go to the official webpage of Paducah and read all that is said about it.
Rodger also did you know that wiki can be edited by anyone that wishes to do so?

[painshill]

Please don’t misunderstand me Jeffery…. I’m not trying to re-write the heritage of your city or trying to be argumentative... just reporting on what I found coincidentally when I checked the possibilities of battle sites in the vicinity. I certainly looked at the City’s official website and elsewhere. What I found was very interesting.

The evidence for the Paducah naming history relies to a large extent on a letter that William Clark sent to his son Meriwether Lewis Clark in 1827 and which resides in the Missouri Historical Society archives. The official Paducah website says: “A letter written by Clark to his son clearly states the reason for the naming of the town. (A facsimile of the letter and the original Paducah maps are on display at the Market House Museum in Paducah.)” It also refers to the Paducah as “the largest nation of Native Americans that ever roamed North America”.

In fact, what Clark’s letter actually says is this: “I expect to go to the mouth of the Tennessee (River) the 26th of next month and be absent about two weeks. I have laid out a town there and intend to sell some lots (in) it, the name is Pa du‐cah, once the largest nation of Indians known in this country, and now almost forgotten.”

There is no mention of a chief of that name, which seems to have come from folklore rather than from Clark himself. Only the “nation” is mentioned. As for the chief, the account given by Neuman in “The Story of Paducah” is that of a “picturesque and stately figure… tall and massive, with his weight mathematically distributed over his several limbs [???]… he towered above his braves like the pyramid at Ghizeh above the desert”.

It is said that Paduke spoke perfect English and was a great admirer of the adventurer General George Rogers Clark (William’s older brother). The story in some accounts goes: “… upon hearing of his imminent arrival in 1819, Paduke waited at the junction of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to meet the great man. Alas, the General changed his plans and never showed.” That has to be rubbish I’m afraid. George Clark left Kentucky and moved to Indiana shortly after 1786 with a tarnished reputation and his career pretty much finished amid rumours of alcohol problems and mounting debts. His health in his latter years was poor (he lost a leg in 1809 after falling into a fireplace as a result of a stroke), and he died of a second stroke in February 1818 (a year before the alleged missed meeting with Paduke). He had passed his claim to the land tracts that became Paducah to his brother to avoid them being seized by one of his many debtors.

The folklore suggestion is that the town was named in memory of that missed meeting (not supported by William Clark’s letter). The folklore accounts continue with the story that Chief Paduke died of malaria while waiting in vain for Clark, his remains being buried at the rendez-vous point. In 1909, a controversy arose about whether Paduke existed at all following the commissioning of the statue to commemorate him by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The sculptor Lorado Taft created the likeness by combining the features from various Native American tribes, although he is also on record as doubting that Paduke existed. Some newspapers (notably in Chicago) were prominent in declaring the whole story a fraud (heritage jealousy?). The humourist Irvin Cobb (a Paducah resident) led the defence of Paduke and the chief was officially declared a person in 1913. More as a result of necessity than historical evidence perhaps.

Real person or “noble savage” legend that was important to the city? I don’t know.

I recently finished reading the (abridged & annotated version of) the Lewis & Clark diaries and it’s clear that, although these are first-hand accounts of their experiences, they relied a lot on what they were told or had read and made many conjectures about such information. The informants and information sources they used might be seen as the equivalent of a non-digital Wikipedia of their day. The only good thing about Wiki as we know it is that it provides references indicating where the information has come from (and makes it clear where citations are missing), as well as providing a full audit history so you can see who has made edits and when.

The blogger ‘teofilo’ comments on the confusion and the likelihood of the existence of such a tribe in detail at the link below and comes to the conclusion that Clark was influenced by unreliable second-hand and hearsay information for which the historical accuracy is rather poor:

http://gamblershouse.wordpress.com/2...e-the-padouca/

It is suggested that the probability is that the “lost” great nation Clark refers to as the Paducah were in fact Apache tribes and had also been mistakenly identified in early French written sources as Comanche. The term “Paducah” and variants of it (including mis-spellings, for which Clark in particular is notorious) came from early European conjecture rather than from the indigenous people they encountered. The Paducah seem to be a “lost people” only in the sense that they never knew themselves under any such name and had no Chikasaw affinities.