Cannonball and Canister Shot/Grapeshot Flower Pot

My parents lived in Selma, Alabama, in the 80's, and went to a lot of yard sales and estate sales in the city. During this time, they picked up a flower pot at an estate sale at one of the old antebellum homes downtown by the river.

The owners of the house, at that time, were elderly and were moving out and selling everything and told my parents the husband had inherited the house from his parents and was born in the home and so on with his parents before him, etc... They were giving up their hereditary property and house and clearing out of the city which was just starting its downward spiral in that period.

When the cannonball and grapeshot/canister shot flower pot was found at the sale, the old man told my dad that his grandfather got them from the Selma Ordnance and Naval Foundry and they had never been used in battle and his grandfather also made the flower pot.

The flower pot had been at the house since the Civil War. A few months ago, my parents left their home in Birmingham and moved to Florida and gave me the flower pot.

It has a small cannonball base and either grapeshot or canister shot framing around the pot and the feet are also canister shot. Grapeshot was no longer being utilized that much on land during the Civil War, it was mostly canister shot.

But, grapeshot was used in naval expeditions and the Selma foundry made both grapeshot and canister shot so, I'll probably never know exactly how the smaller shots were meant to be used.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting and hope some of you may find it interesting too.