Red-Hot Cannonballs

Red-Hot Cannonballs. Fort Jefferson. Imagine what it was like to heat solid cannonballs in a hot shot furnace like this one, so gun crews could fire red-hot projectiles at wooden warships to set them ablaze. This process involved several soldiers. One soldier maintained the coal fire and loaded the cannonballs. After 30 minutes, a second soldier removed the heated balls with tongs, and a third cleaned them with a rasp. Others carried them in ladles to the guns around the fort., The idea of setting fire to enemy warships can be traced back to the ancient world. The advent of explosive shot and ironclad ships in the Civil War eventually rendered this kind of furnace obsolete. Oceangoing ironclads, however, were not common, so this hot-shot furnace was viable for use against wooden ships long after the war., (captions) , Historic hot shot furnace before it was rebuilt , The hot shot furnace was completed in 1863 and refurbished in 2004. It is believed to br the largest, and the last, hot shot furnace built in the United States.