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Veteran Affairs

2011-03-01 11:31:00

Cannons used during the Civil War - series

Question: What types of cannons were used during the Civil War?

Answer: Thank you for your question. I look forward to answering it, but having researched this for quite some time, it will take more than one issue. At the beginning of 1861, the American field artillery consisted almost exclusively of pre-Mexican War smoothbores not significantly different from the pieces with which we fought the Revolutionary War. By 1865 however, advances in metallurgy combined with new manufacturing techniques, better powder and more dependable fuses to bring muzzle-loading artillery to its highest possible state of effectiveness. First however, definitions. Early field artillery was identified by the term “pounder” (usually abbreviated “pdr”), which referred to the weight of the solid shot fired by a particular size gun. Thus a 12-pdr gun was called that because it fired a solid round shot weighing 12 pounds. With the development of howitzers in the 17th century, the term became obsolete, though it continued to be used right up through the Civil War. “Howitzers,” technically speaking, are not “guns.” They are shorter, lighter pieces than guns of the same bore diameter, have chambered bores, use smaller charges, fire explosive shells instead of solid shot, and were meant, essentially, to lob their projectiles at low velocity into a target. Pitty the poor private who called his rifle a gun. Guns are longer and heavier. They use larger charges and have untapered (unchambered) bores of a consistent diameter all the way to the breech. They were originally intended for relatively long range pounding or battering (thus the word, “battery”) of targets with projectiles fired at high velocity. These distinctions had blurred considerably by the time of the Civil War, but the terms continued in use. Howitzers, in any case, had come to be manufactured in the same standard bore sizes as guns, so the “pounder” designation of a particular gun was automatically applied to the howitzer of the same bore size. A Model 1841 12-pdr gun, for example, had a 4.62 inch bore. The Model 1841 howitzers of the same bore size were therefore called “12pdrs” even though their hollow shells usually weighed less (though, depending on how they were packed, could weigh more) than 12 pounds. In short, by the time of the war, “pounder” actually referred to bore size rather than to projectile weight. There must have been only two types of cannon used during the war - “green ones and black ones.”The “green ones” obviously are the bronze (sometimes called “brass”) pieces, usually smoothbores, which have weathered to a pale greenish hue. Their designs generally pre-date the war by from five to 20-years. The “black ones,” for the most part, are the iron rifles which were being developed just as the war began. When the fighting actually started, the armament of the field artillery consisted only of “green ones.” There were six altogether, though one, the little 12-pdr “mountain howitzer,” saw such limited use during the conflict that it will not be considered here. The five main pieces were the Model 1841 6-pdr and 12-pdr guns, the Model 1841 12-pdr and 24-pdr howitzers, and the Model 1857 Light 12-pdr Gun-Howitzer, or “Napoleon.”Larger pieces such as the 24-pdr gun and 32-pdr howitzer could also be used in the field, but only with difficulty due to their size and weight. Technically, these are classed as “siege” pieces, rather than ‘’field’’ pieces. Note again that these smoothbores were all there was. There were no rifled field pieces in the U.S. service before 1861. Next issue, we will begin to take them one at a time.