The hot shot furnace is part of a water battery, built between 1835 and 1844, located on the east side of the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine, Florida. This furnace would have been stoked by a team of soldiers preparing cannonballs as “hot shot” that would be used to fire at incoming wooden ships. The shot was ready after about 30 minutes of heating in a coal bed. Metal tongs were required to remove the shot and prepare it for firing from the cannon and artillery stationed nearby along the fort’s seawall.
Although not a technique that was battle proven at the Castillo, soldiers did routinely drill for the possibility of using hotshot to fend off invaders. This technology went out of vogue when ironclad ships came into use and made these type of furnaces obsolete. Background image is courtesy National Park Service, c. 1939 from the publication: Hot Shot Furnaces (pg. 6).
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