Other Items

LANYARD: Made of a strong twisted cord, 12-feet long, with a wooden handle attached at one end and an iron hook at the other. The lanyard hook was attached to the eye in the serrated wire of the friction primer after the primer was seated into the vent. The gunner would grip the wooden handle and pull the lanyard quickly, thereby causing the wire to pull through the friction primer, causing a spark. This would ignite the powder charge in the cannon tube.

 

FRICTION PRIMER TIN:  These are two different Federal friction primer tins that originally held 100 friction primers in sawdust.  A friction primer is a small brass or quill tube, known as the priming tube, filled with gunpowder and used to send a flame to the powder charge inside the cannon bore. It was ignited by pulling an attached rough wire quickly through a friction composition contained in a second tube. The resulting flame was transferred through the tube and into the powder bag in the bore. A lanyard was used to pull the wire.