It is in short-circuit

Which kind of wire are you using to connect the batteries to the silver? Is it cooper without any isolation?

By looking the picture you provided I can see that probably your setup is in short-circuit. In this way never will works. Due that short-circuit possibly the batteries already lost all the power.

You have to rethink your setup, reassemble everything with a less improvised circuit and test for short-circuits with a multimeter. A DC adaptor is better and cheaper than the batteries.