The American Civil War has been called the last of the ancient wars and the first of the modern wars. It was a war which introduced the first metallic rifle and pistol cartridges, the first repeating rifles and carbines, the first ironclad ships, and many other inventions which herald a change in warfare. But the military still relied on the old tried and trusted means of smoothbore muskets, paper cartridges, and troops marching in military precision across the battlefield towards the enemy. More innovations and experimentation took place during the Civil War than during all other previous wars combined. This mix of technology was very evident in the ordnance department.
Prior to 1860, the United States government offered little encouragement to, and even less interest in, the inventions and experiments being offered by various ordnance experts. The general opinion of the U.S. Ordnance Department was that smoothbore cannons had won the previous wars and nothing further was needed. Many of the Ordnance Department employees were elder military officers who resisted any changes or departures from these smoothbore field guns, Napoleons, howitzers, and Columbiads.
The Rifling Revolution
Meanwhile, in Great Britain inventors were encouraged by their government to implement the rifling system in both small arms and artillery. Rifling was a system of lands and grooves in a barrel which caused a projectile to turn as it exited the muzzle, thereby improving trajectory and accuracy. The grooves were cut into the smoothbore gun and the lands were the original diameter and spaces left after the rifling process. Rifled weapons had to be stronger than smoothbore because a greater stress was inflicted on the gun by a tighter seal (less windage) necessary for the projectile to take the rifling, resulting in vastly greater pressures in the breech to overcome the friction between the projectile and the rifled bore.
During this pre-war period, Englishman Bashley Britten patented the Britten projectile on August 1, 1855. Britten pioneered a method which cast a lead sabot onto the iron shell. Upon being fired the sabot expanded and took the rifling in the cannon barrel. Variations of this system were used on a multitude of projectiles during the Civil War.
The Opening Shot — Fort Sumter
The reluctance of the United States Government to entertain improvements in artillery ended when, on April 12, 1861, at 4:30 A.M., Confederate Army Lieutenant Henry S. Farley pulled the lanyard on his mortar at Fort Johnson, South Carolina. The shell he fired arched high over Charleston harbor and exploded above Fort Sumter, thus beginning the first sustained artillery duel of the Civil War.
Although the Confederate ship Star Of The West was fired on by Confederates in Charleston harbor on January 9, 1861 — that opening mortar at Fort Johnson, for all intent and purposes, signaled the beginning of four years of bloody conflict.
Although the Confederates forced the surrender of Fort Sumter, the new nation found itself woefully short of ordnance. Most artillery in the South came from local Federal forts and armories captured shortly after hostilities commenced. Since the South had only one working cannon foundry at the beginning of hostilities — the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia — it was imperative to quickly start the political and business maneuvering essential to establishing import trade from Europe.
The Federal forces began the war with over 4,000 pieces of artillery, but field artillery accounted for less than 165 of these weapons. With the distinct advantage of having several foundries able to shift over to wartime production, the North could rely on the raw materials to produce a formidable artillery arm.
Artillery Categories
Cannons can be divided into several categories according to their basic design, weight, barrel length, maximum effective elevation and range, and type of projectiles employed:
- ◆ Field artillery — light and easy to maneuver through difficult terrain
- ◆ Mountain artillery — quickly broken down for transportation on horseback
- ◆ Siege & garrison artillery — heavy, but transportable to fortifications
- ◆ Seacoast artillery — heavy, cumbersome weapons mounted in forts along waterways
Guns & Howitzers
Guns and howitzers are the weapons most people think about when Civil War artillery is discussed. These weapons were usually formed in batteries — a group of six weapons in the Union Army. A gun was a long-barreled, heavy weapon which fired solid shot at long range with a low degree of elevation using a large powder charge. A howitzer had a shorter barrel and could throw shots or shells at a shorter range but at higher elevation with smaller powder charges — lighter and more maneuverable than guns.
The most popular and dependable gun was the Model 1857, commonly called the Napoleon (named after the French emperor Louis Napoleon who supported development of the design). This 12-pounder smoothbore was effective, reliable, and easily maneuvered. It had a range of 1,600 yards at five-degrees elevation. The Confederate army used many captured Napoleons as well as developing their own copy — cast from iron when bronze became scarce in the South.
"Whistling Dick"
One of the most famous guns of the war was "Whistling Dick", a banded and rifled 18-pounder Confederate siege and garrison weapon. "Whistling Dick" began life as an iron smoothbore Model 1839 which had been rifled. Because of some erratic rifling, all shells fired from the gun made a peculiar whistling sound, thus the name. The gun was part of the river defenses at Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863, and is credited with the sinking of the Union gunboat Cincinnati. "Whistling Dick" disappeared after the surrender of Vicksburg and remains unaccounted for today.
Mortars
Mortars were stubby weapons which fired heavy projectiles in a high arc. Only a small powder charge was needed to project the shot or shell to its maximum elevation. When a mortar shell exploded, fragments weighing as much as ten or twenty pounds could fall with extreme velocity on the enemy. Combatants and non-combatants alike became adept at constructing bomb-proofs to protect themselves from fragments and solid shot.
At night, the lighted fuzes of the shells were easily observed and the path of the shell could be traced during flight. Mortars were most beneficial when the target was above or below the level line of sight — conditions that caused elevation problems for long-barreled weapons but allowed the short mortars to operate with efficiency.
"The Dictator"
Perhaps the most famous mortar used during the war was "The Dictator." This weapon was a 13-inch Model 1861 seacoast mortar which was mounted on a specially reinforced railroad car to accommodate its weight of 17,000 pounds. Company G of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery served the "Dictator" at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia in 1864. The mortar could lob a 200-pound explosive shell about 2½ miles. The "Dictator" was usually positioned in a curved section of the Petersburg & City Point Railroad and was employed for about three months during the siege.
Columbiads
A Columbiad was a heavy iron artillery piece which could fire shot and shell at a high angle of elevation using a heavy powder charge. Columbiads were usually classified as seacoast defense weapons and were mounted in fortifications along the rivers and other waterways. The original Columbiad, a 50-pounder, was invented in 1811 by Col. George Bomford and was used in the War of 1812.
In 1861, Lt. Thomas J. Rodman of the U.S. Ordnance Department contracted with the Fort Pitt Foundry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to produce Columbiads using a special casting method he had developed in 1844. His process caused less stress on the gun during casting, thereby preventing cracks from forming — and the Columbiad became widely known as a Rodman gun.
Parrott Cannon
One famous U.S. inventor was a former West Point graduate named Robert Parker Parrott. In 1836, Parrott resigned his rank of captain and went to work for the West Point Foundry at Cold Spring, New York. By 1860, he had patented a new method of attaching the reinforcing band on the breech of a gun tube. The 10-pounder Parrott was patented in 1861 and the 20- and 30-pounder guns followed. He quickly produced 6.4-, 8-, and 10-inch caliber cannons — referred to as the 100, 200, and 300-pounder Parrotts respectively.
"The Swamp Angel"
In preparation for the bombardment of Charleston, South Carolina, in August 1863, Major General Quincy Gillmore ordered the construction of a battery in the swampy marsh near Morris Island. An 8-inch, 200-pounder Parrott siege gun was mounted under fire from the Confederates, and promptly began firing incendiary shells into the city. This gun, named the "Swamp Angel," continued firing for two days until, on the thirty-sixth round, the gun exploded.
3-Inch Ordnance Rifle
The Model 1861 3-inch wrought iron rifle, sometimes called an Ordnance rifle, was also a common weapon. The Ordnance Rifle was manufactured at the Phoenix Iron Company in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and adopted by the Federal Ordnance Department in early 1861. This weapon could accurately fire Schenkl and Hotchkiss shells approximately 2,000 yards at five degrees elevation using a one-pound charge of powder.
Blakely Rifle
A British army officer, Captain Theophilus Alexander Blakely, pioneered a banding system for his rifled cannon. With each experiment of his design a different cannon was developed — resulting in at least five, and possibly as many as ten, distinct types of Blakely cannons. One famous Blakely rifle was "The Widow Blakely", used by the Confederates during the defenses of Vicksburg in 1863.
Whitworth Rifle
In Manchester, England, in the late 1850s, Sir Joseph Whitworth patented a system for cannons which used a hexagonal bore design instead of the usual rifling methods. The ammunition also carried the hexagonal design in order to follow the bore, allowing for better range and accuracy. Whitworth manufactured his cannons in both breech-loading and muzzle-loading models. The Whitworth projectile, by its very design, made an eerie whining sound during flight.
Brooke Gun
Early in the war, John M. Brooke, late of the U.S. Navy and now an ordnance officer in the Confederate Navy, designed a banded cannon similar in appearance to the Parrott. The Brooke band consisted of several rings which were not welded together. Its rifling was similar to the Blakely gun and came in a number of calibers, including 6.4-inch, 7-inch, 8-inch, and 11-inch. John Brooke's other claim to fame was the key role he played in designing the armor plating used by the CSS Virginia (Merrimac).
Dahlgren Gun
Dahlgren weapons are usually divided into three groups — bronze boat howitzers and rifles, iron smoothbores, and iron rifles. The designer, John A. B. Dahlgren of the U.S. Navy, developed the weapons primarily for use on small boats that patrolled the waterways. The first weapon systems were adopted by the Navy in 1850. By the end of the Civil War, now a Rear Admiral, he was responsible for the development of everything from 12-pounder boat howitzers to massive 20-inch rifles.
Conclusion
The importance of the artillery service cannot be overstated. Because artillery fire was apt to produce mass casualties when fired into an advancing line of enemy, it could also be used as a psychological weapon. A soldier advancing against artillery was often unnerved by the prospects of encountering canister, case shot, and shrapnel.
New tactics using artillery weapons were developed during the American Civil War which herald the beginning of modern warfare. "Flying batteries", first used by Confederate Artillery Major John Pelham, were effective in deluding the enemy into believing a greater artillery force opposed them. A new era dawned on April 10–11, 1862, when Federal Captain Quincy Gillmore forced the surrender of Fort Pulaski off the coast of Savannah, Georgia — using rifled guns to breach a masonry wall within thirty hours, spelling the end for masonry forts designed to withstand smoothbore bombardments.
"Thus, the Civil War can live up to its billing as 'the last of the ancient wars and the first of the modern wars.'"