This small piece of iron was once part of a cannonball fired at a group of Iowa artillerymen during the Battle of Pea Ridge on May 7, 1862. Photo: NPS-MWAC.
By Carl G. Drexler
Archeologists can do a lot with artifacts recovered from a battlefield. Usually, we look at large numbers of artifacts at once. By looking at the densities and patterns of find locations, we can tell where soldiers stood to fight one another and how they moved around on the battlefield. Sometimes, though, single artifacts can tell us a lot, which is true for this month’s Artifact of the Month.
Pictured is a small piece of iron, roughly shaped like a triangle, and curved. It was once part of a cannonball. Shaped somewhat like a cartoon bomb, the cannonball was a jet-black iron ball that, on May 7, 1862, was fired at a group of Iowa artillerymen perched atop a ridge north of Elkhorn Tavern, during the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Northwest Arkansas.
