It’s a hexagonal piece of lead, maybe the size of a fingertip. Canister shot, it was called, and the Continental Army used it to shred British lines at the Battle of Monmouth in June of 1778.
When his team of volunteer archaeologists found this and other pieces of ordnance in the ground at Monmouth Battlefield State Park last summer, Dan Sivilich suspected they were not your typical artifacts.
“Two appeared to have fabric impressions on them which suggested they might have hit a uniform,†Sivilich said.
He sent them to PaleoResarch Inc. in Colorado for testing. Nine months later his hunch was proven correct — and then some. One of the pieces tested positive for human blood protein.
“In other words, it hit a soldier,†Sivilich said. “This is the only piece of Revolutionary War canister shot ever found that’s been positively tested for human blood.â€
That’s not all. Based on where they were discovered, Sivilich believes the pieces probably were fired by Proctor’s Pennsylvania artillery. One of its cannon is associated with the legendary heroine Molly Pitcher, whose real name likely was Mary Hays.
“It could have been a round that Molly Pitcher handled,†Sivilich said. “We can’t say for sure, but it makes for interesting speculation.â€
23 May 2017
Greg
The battlefield extends to my backyard. One of my neighbors is a commercial flower grower, his kitchen has a shelf full of cannon balls and fragments, musket balls, other artifacts he’s discovered when turning over his land. This is very interesting to me, as I am a collector of Molly Pitcher memorabilia, thanks for posting.
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