Like The Walking Dead, and with emike's permission, I'm going to bring this thread back from the dead. This shell he illustrated is not just another 'damn' Mullane. It is special with a story that needs to be told. Bear with me.
First of all, it was not made by Tredegar. After casting nearly all of the 3 inch Archer shot & shell during 1861, the Richmond Arsenal naturally expected the Ironworks to make all of the 3 inch Mullanes with the Tennessee sabot when large-scale production began in the middle of February 1862. The records show they produced about 450 during the remainder of the month, 1,800 in March followed by 2,600 in April and 3,428 in May. At this time, an increasing nervous Ordnance Bureau was begging Tredegar to speed up its production dramatically. The intensity of the fighting on the Peninsula was increasing with the great battle of Fair Oaks at the end of the month. On June 23, 1862, the Richmond Arsenal's Maj. Briscoe Baldwin invoked the name of the Army's beloved commander when he wrote: "Please make every exertion to give us some 3 inch shell today and tomorrow. I have a most urgent order to send what can be gotten ready immediately to a very central point. Gen. Lee is very anxious on the subject." At the time they were about to launch the ferocious 7 Days battles.
Faced with frequent metal shortages and an understrength workforce, Tredegar relinquished its role as the primary source of 3 inch ammunition. Still, they managed to make another 5,000 during June and July, followed by a final 1,550 in August. But that was the end. Tredegar never made a 3 inch Read or later Broun, and their production of 10 and 20 pounder Read-Parrotts soon halted for good. From contemporary correspondence, it is clear that the struggling Ironworks asked to be relieved of this responsibility. It is also apparent that the dissatisfied Richmond Arsenal had already turned to any of the smaller foundries willing to cast quantities of 3 inch Mullanes. This included Samson & Pae, Rahm and Lynchburg's Deane & Son. Following this time line, only the standard Tredegar Mullanes are dug at sites from the spring of 1862 like Yorktown, Williamsburg and probably including Fair Oaks on May 31st & June 1st. The 7 Days should have mostly Tredegars while a mix of the other mold patterns begin to show up including some sent to VA from Deep South foundries. None of the preceding 3-inch shells should have flame grooves or copper fuze plugs. The first Mullane pictured below does not have a flame groove.
Emike's second Mullane shell was cast from the same mold pattern as the two projectiles pictured below as was a 3rd Mullane I'll post later. They are not the common Tredegar pattern. All of this particular casting include a rectangular lathe key chiseled off the ogive and a prominent round air vent opposite the mold seam between the bourrelets. You never see these features on the Tredegar Mullanes. The three versions of this pattern I am showing here match the timing and details provided by S & P's production records. They made their first 250 three-inch shells during June and July, 1862. At that time, flame grooves had not been prescribed (On August 9th, the Richmond Arsenal ordered: "To ignite the time fuzes,...the base of the 3 inch shell to have one slot and a groove through the projection of metal.") The first of this pattern pictured below has no flame groove. The second Mullane pictured below is identical to the first except for a very smooth crescent cut in the bottom bourrelet that appears so identical from one shell to another that it might have been cast-in as part of the mold pattern. Its safe to assume that about half of those first 250 S & P Mullanes from June and July were not finished until August which I believe explains the origin of emike's new shell.
Samson & Pae recorded its first use of copper fuze plugs with their Mullanes on August 15, 1862. Their monthly voucher included: "Six 3-inch Rifle shell with fuzes tapped" at $2.25 each. The current price for any contractor making wood-fuzed Mullanes was $1.75. In the next few months, an additional 25 cents was regularly charged for threading fuze holes and 25 cents the official price of a copper plug. The process began on July 10th when the respected Richmond shop billed the government for "One machine for casting fuze plugs - brass & 2 cast steel taps." By "machine" they meant "mold," and the "steel taps" cut matching 12 per inch treads into the fuze hole and onto the plug. The third S & P Mullane I'll show on a follow-up posting has one of these first copper fuze plugs with the same thin head seen on other identified S & P projectiles made in late 1862. It was fired at Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863. Samson & Pae switched to making 3 inch Reads sometime in October or early November, 1862.
