Grape Shot

This week’s artifact is a relic from the Civil War.

Made of about 2-inch solid cast iron balls stacked on top of each other, the spheres would have been packed in a cloth sleeve with metal plates to separate the layers, and then bound with rope or twine. When it was bound, the bundle looked something like a bunch of grapes, hence the name “grapeshot”.

It was loaded into a muzzle loading cannon with a black powder “charge”, which projected the shot out of the cannon when it was ignited.

The first recorded use was around the late 1600’s to early 1700’s, in Europe.

Originally, cannon projectiles were made of stone spheres, but these had a nasty habit of crumbling as they exited the barrel of a cannon, so lead was tried next. The problem with lead was that it is incredibly soft compared to cast iron and would distort when fired. So, smiths moved on to cast iron. The advantage of cast iron was that it was easily available, and it held it’s shape. It could also be heated, which was particularly devastating to the enemy. And, unlike cannon balls, it was not designed to detonate on impact.

Grapeshot was initially used by ships at sea but was not very effective if the crew of the enemy ship was below deck, or if they had deployed special nets to catch the shot before it could do any real damage. It was great for tearing apart rigging and sails, not to mention human bodies, if precautions were not taken.

It was later adapted to land based warfare, as it was highly effective at taking out massed bodies on the battlefield when used at close range. It was pretty effective at mid-range as well, certainly more so than canister shot, which was just coming into mass production around the time of the civil war.

When fired, grapeshot acts a lot like a shotgun blast, but on steroids. Imagine a shotgun shell that fires 2-inch solid cast iron balls, with a range of just under 2,000 yards. You are almost guaranteed to hit something (or someone), which allowed for mass casualties among your enemies.

Grapeshot eventually fell out of favor around the end of the Civil War, when more effective long-range weapons were coming into widespread use.

Our records do not show when, or even if our grapeshot was ever used, nor who donated it. We are guessing that it was probably brought back by one of the many Iowans who served in the Civil War.

“Out of the Attic” features artifacts from the collection of the Des Moines County Historical Society. For more information, to ask questions or to offer comments or suggestions, call (319) 752-7449 or email dmchs@dmchs.org.