Hot shot Furnace

This was at Fort Knox and I found it fascinating

You start a fire in the bottom of the building, you load cannon balls into one end of it. They roll through the fire and once they’ve been in there 20 or 30 minutes, you open the door and pull out a red hot cannonball fire it at the enemy ship, and it catches their ship on fire

Here’s what’s interesting - Fort Knox was built in pieces due to monetary constraints. They built this before they actually got their cannons in. By the time they got the cannons ships weren’t wooden anymore. They were metal and the cannon balls that would have fit. This building were no longer being used. They were using bigger cannons to take down the iron clad ships. So although this was built, it was never used.Read more