News---20 ' Long, 20' High, 6' Diameter: Rodman Canon, Wonder of the 19th Century, Reproduction Exhibited In Pittsburgh

Heinz History Center To Display Copy Of Huge Fort Pitt 1864 Cannon,  Len Barcousky, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette June 10, 2013

 

Fabricating a full-size reproduction of a 20-inch Rodman cannon required the help of a 21st century 3-D computer modeling program. The artisans at LF Creative Group needed about two months to complete the job. "It takes amazing technology to make this kind of copy," LF Creative partner Travis Gillum said. "What is more amazing is that workers were able to make something this big in the 1860s."

The barrel of the Rodman reproduction is about 20 feet long and about 6 feet in diameter at its widest point. When mounted on its iron carriage, the artillery piece will stand about 20 feet tall. The model will serve as the centerpiece of the 9,000-square-foot "Pennsylvania's Civil War" exhibit that opens June 22 at the Heinz History Center. The original 20-inch Rodman cannon was cast in 1864 at the Fort Pitt Foundry, That manufacturing plant was located on the banks of the Allegheny River, just across Smallman Street from the history center. The "20-inch" refers to the interior diameter of the weapon's bore.

The giant gun was built according to a design developed by U.S. Army ordnance officer Thomas Jackson Rodman, the one-time commander of the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville. Rodman's cannons were made of cast iron and cooled from the inside out by water flowing through the center of the mold. The metal shrank inward as it cooled, producing a stronger barrel far less likely to blow up while being fired. Rodman developed several other military innovations, according to Andrew Masich, president of the Heinz History Center. "He perfected a bullet-making machine that used compression rather than casting," Mr. Masich said. "It allowed workers to crank out thousands of bullets per hour, each uniform in weight and size."

Rodman also designed new cartridges for use in breech-loading, rather than muzzle-loading, weapons. Because they offered increased strength and safety, Rodman cannons could be made much larger. Charged with 200 pounds of gunpowder, the 20-inch Rodman could fire a half-ton ball 4 1/2 miles. The barrel of the smooth-bore, cast-iron artillery piece weighed more than 58 tons and required a special railroad car to transport it to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Its original role was to protect the Verrazano Narrows entrance to New York's upper bay. While it no longer keeps watch over the harbor, the cannon remains near its original location in a small park. The only other cannon Rodman made this size is at Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, N.J. The model of the Rodman cannon is one of the largest single pieces that the Ohio-based LF Creative Group ever has produced, Mr. Gillum said. With a foot in several different worlds, LF Creative does work for both museums and theme parks, he said.

. . .  Full Text Continued at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 10, 2013

News---Three Inch Schenkl Unfired Artillery Shell Found Buried On Sharpsburg Farm

 

Sharpsburg Man Unearths Live Civil War-Era Shell, Dave Rhodes, Herald Mail, April 11, 2013
A Sharpsburg man planting trees at his Powell Road home Thursday unearthed a live Civil War-era shell that authorities later disposed of by setting it off at a neighboring farm. “When I saw it I knew what it was,” J.D. Taylor Jr. said. “It was the second one I found here. 

“It was some kind of experience.” Taylor said he at first thought he hit a rock with his steel shovel while digging in his yard about a mile from Antietam National Battlefield sometime between 8:30 to 9 a.m. He pushed the shovel under the object, which was five or six inches deep, and knelt to pry it out.

The Maryland State Fire Marshal’s office said in a news release that the object was a 3-inch Federal Navy Schenkl that had not been fired and had an intact fusing mechanism. Taylor said it weighed about eight pounds, was about nine inches long and had a spring-loaded detonator on the end. “It looked like a torpedo without the fins,” he said.

Taylor said he wasn’t afraid to handle it. “I said, ‘Oh my Lord, there’s another one,’” he said.
He had prior experience with another one found 30 years earlier and about 12 to 13 feet away.
Taylor said a contractor working to build his home in 1983 found one just like it while digging on the site.

He said he left the first one at a tree in the woods and it eventually disappeared. He thinks it was probably taken by Civil War artifact hunters.  After finding the second shell on Thursday, Taylor called the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, which requested bomb technicians from the state fire marshal. Those technicians were joined at Taylor's home by U.S. Army bomb technicians from Fort Belvoir, Va. Fire and emergency medical service personnel from Sharpsburg stood by, according to the fire marshal’s news release. Taylor said Maryland State Police were also at the scene.

Authorities using computers in their vehicles researched the device and determined it had been used by both the Union army and navy during the Civil War, according to Taylor. The technicians took the shell to the neighboring farm and detonated it, he said. “It made a decent boom,” Taylor said.
No one was hurt. The on-site research showed that had the shell been inert, it would have been worth about $600 to a collector, Taylor said.

Text Source: Herald Mail
Image Source: ICollector

New and Noteworthy---A Civil War Veteran Artillerist Evaluates The Use and Misuse of Saint Barbara's Thunder

The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65, John C. Tidball, Lawrence M. Kaplan, editor, Westholme Publishing, 400 pages, 30 b/w illustrations, maps, notes, index, bibliography, $30.00. Release Date:October 28, 2011.

The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–65, is a comprehensive overview and analysis of the U.S. Army’s field artillery service in the Civil War’s principal battles, written by John C. Tidball, a distinguished artilleryman of the era. The overview, which appeared in the Journal of the Military Service Institution from 1891 to 1893, and nearly impossible to find today, examines the Army of the Potomac, including the battles of Fair Oaks, Gaines’s Mill, Mechanicsville, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; the Army of the Tennessee, including the battles of Stones River and Chickamauga, and the Army of the Ohio’s battle of Shiloh.

Tidball, a decorated Civil War veteran and superintendent of artillery instruction for the army, expertly presents the war through an artilleryman’s eyes in explaining the organization, equipping, and manning of the artillery service. His analysis highlights how the improper use of artillery, tying batteries down to relatively small infantry commands that diluted their firepower, seriously undermined the army’s effectiveness until reforms produced independent artillery commands that could properly mass artillery fire in battle.

The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion, edited by historian Lawrence M. Kaplan and presented here in one volume for the first time, includes additional material from an unpublished paper Tidball wrote in 1905 which contains further insights into the artillery service, as well as a general overview of the Petersburg campaign. A major new discovery in Civil War scholarship, The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion contains essential information that will change earlier historical interpretations of key battles and will be essential reading for all those interested in the war or contemplating writing about it.

John C. Tidball, 1825–1906, was a career army officer and Superintendent of Artillery Instruction at the Artillery School from 1874 to 1881. He served through the Civil War in most of the major campaigns in the Eastern Theater, from the first battle of Bull Run through the siege of Petersburg. He was brevetted five times for gallant and meritorious conduct on the field and ended the war as a brevet major general.

Lawrence M. Kaplan is chief historian of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. He has served as a staff historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., and as a staff historian at the U.S. Army Field Artillery Center, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He is the author of Homer Lea: An American Soldier of Fortune.

Text Source: Westholme Publishing

1861 News--- Cannons' Tests Became Public Spectacle In Pittsburgh

Eyewitness 1861: Testing Of War Cannons Became Public Spectacle, Len Barcousky, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 7, 2011.

In the summer of 1861, cannons like this one, now installed at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, were tested at a "proving ground" near Tarentum. Testing, or "proving," Pittsburgh-made artillery was combined with "al fresco" dining by local businessmen and their wives during the summer of 1861.

On June 5 crews transported 10 cannons, called "columbiads," and four mortars by train from the city to a "proving ground" across the Allegheny River from Tarentum. There the guns were subjected to day-long tests. "Some experiments were also made to ascertain the effect of projectiles on heavy iron plates," according to a next-day story in the Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch.

"The experiments on the iron plate, together with the novelty of the Government proof, attracted quite a large party, chiefly gentlemen connected with the iron interest," the story said. "A number of ladies also accompanied the party, for whose special delectation the aid of a city confectioner had been called in to prepare a banquet 'al fresco.'" Several lawyers and "gentlemen of leisure were also added to the party, engrafting the lighter amusement of an impromptu picnic on the graver business of Uncle Sam," the report went on.

Such weapons tests were especially important in the opening months of the Civil War as Pittsburgh's workshops, foundries and "manufactories" geared up to supply the Union forces with weapons, ammunition and uniforms. The site of the former proving ground is now private property, according to local historian Arthur Fox, who has identified the spot. Although the location was more than 20 miles upriver from Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle, the area was by no means wilderness in the 19th century.

The site lacked "a large extent of waste country or a body of water ... on which the balls or shells may fall without risking life," the story said. Mortars were usually tested by angling their barrels at 45 degrees, but the Dispatch story said that the weapons for these tests were aimed almost parallel to the ground in an effort to keep spent rounds from landing close to nearby houses. Later tests included mortar firings at near point-blank range -- a mere 100 yards -- at iron plates of various thicknesses. "The plates were invariably hit, and generally at approximately the center, which would not have disgraced many riflemen," the reporter wrote.

Gun crews then carried out similar checks on the 8-inch columbiads, smooth-bore cannons that fired 64-pound balls. During the proving ground trials, one of the targets for two of the guns was a5-inch-thick iron sheet. When the smoke cleared away after one test firing, observers found two trees had been toppled and the plate had been hit twice and broken in half. "The result of all the firing proves that at short range no ordinary, or practicable iron sheeting would resist the power of a columbiad shot," the reporter concluded.

That conclusion, however, would be proved at least partially wrong nine months later. In March 1862 the Union's Monitor and the Confederate's Merrimac, both ironclads, battled each other to a draw, at the mouth of the James River in Virginia. The results of that otherwise minor engagement showed that iron plate could be very effective in protecting ships and their crews from cannon fire. In the years that followed, navies around the world rapidly converted their fleets from wood to iron.

Image Caption:In the summer of 1861, cannons like this one, now installed at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, were tested at a "proving ground" near Tarentum, Pennsylvania.

Text and Image Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette, August 7, 2011

New: The Summer Thunder of Saint Barbara' s Artillerymen

Summer Thunder: A Battlefield Guide To The Artillery At Gettysburg, Matt Spruill, University of Tennessee Press, 338 pp., 60 b/w photographs, 74 maps, 5 appendices, 2010, $29.95.

Matt Spruill, author of four Civil War battlefield guides, brings his teaching experience at the U.S. Army General Command and Staff College and the U.S. Army War College to bear upon the Gettysburg battlefield. His 2011 Decisions at Gettysburg: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Campaign may be among this year's best books on the Battle of Gettysburg.

Summer Thunder is one of a kind. Students of the Battle of Gettysburg are well served by Bradley Gottfried's The Artillery of Gettysburg and Spruill's book is also valued resource for is visitors to the national military park. Summer Thunder uniqueness lies in a 'boots on the ground' approach. Many guide books take the user on a two hour tour with July 2 and July 3 cover in one stop. Spruill's tour is thorough with 35 stops many of which have three and even four segments once the user get out of the car. July 1, July 2, and July 3 engagements are distinct on the tour.

The armies’ deployment of artillery from one position to another, from one day to the next is carefully described. Matt Spruill, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former Gettysburg Battlefield Licensed Guide, offers readers succinct segments of the artillerists' and infantry commanders' reports found in the Offical Records and in their postwar writings. The tactical thinking of of the cannoneers is revealed and their voices are clear and precise in Summer Thunder.

Spruill has chosen 35 locations with complete with driving instructions, recent photographs, and uncluttered maps that depict the battlefield as it was in 1863. The artillery positions are marked and includes the number of guns in action with each battery. The passages from primary sources reveal the participants understandings of the event.

Gregory Coco's A Concise Guide to the Artillery at Gettysburg is among the best short consideration of the topic. Spruill's is quite similar regarding the various artillery pieces and ammunition used by both armies. What makes Summer Thunder distinctive is the constant attention Spruill to the distance in yards between the tour stop and the distant targets and the ability of some pieces to reach further than others.

For frequent visitors to the battlefield or those who attend the anniversary battle walks hosted by the National Park Service, Summer Thunder is so descriptive that the mind's eye can visual from the text the view Spruill describes. Well illustrated with portraits of the commanders and present day views of the terrain, the book's text is supported by appropriate visuals.

Several but not all the maps have topographic lines. Thankfully, the farm buildings, those still standing and those lost to time, are on the maps. Small disappointments in Summer Thunder include the omission of the Pennsylvania Reserves assault and capture of Houck's Ridge and the clearing of the Wheatfield after the Grand Assault. Also, the cavalry battles of July 3 are not covered. The July 2 artillery duel between the Federals East Cemetery Hill, McKnight's Knoll and Culp's Hill and the Confederates on Benner's Hill is addressed in an appendix.

Summer Thunder is of value for all who read at least one Gettysburg book in a year, who travel there anytime, who reenact Civil War artillery, who take the Licensed Battlefield Guide Examine or those who members of the Order of Saint Barbara, a military honor society of the field artillery and the air defense units of the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps. Saint Barbara's Day is December 4.

Forthcoming: Memoir of a Confederate Canoneer in General Lee's Army

Where Men Only Dare to Go Or the Story of a Boy Company, C.S.A., ,Royall W. Figg, Foreword by Robert K. Krick,Louisiana State University Press,272 pp, 1 photograph, $19.95, October 2008.

First published in 1885 and long out of print, Where Men Only Dare to Go by Royall W. Figg remains a classic memoir of Confederate service. This updated edition, with a new foreword by historian Robert K. Krick, brings Figg's captivating narrative back into print. Figg tells the story of Captain William W. Parker's Virginia battery, a significant Confederate unit that participated in every important engagement fought by the Army of Northern Virginia. Comprised mainly of young men, it became known as "Parker's Boy Battery." Figg joined the company at age twenty as a charter member at the battery's initial muster on March 14, 1862. He appears on each of the battery's fourteen bimonthly muster rolls from March 1862 to February 1865—an unusually devoted service record. His devotion is evident in the detailed accounting he provides of the battery's history, a vivid and engaging record of the experiences of a Confederate artillerist providing a rich blend of bravery, rascally behavior, and drollery.

J. Thompson Brown, the last commander of Parker's Virginia Battery, described Figg as "a fair representative of our Company, an intelligent fairly educated boy. . . . He was a truthful and Christian gentleman. . . . I believe what he says, as no man could doubt Royal W. Figg's statement." The reappearance of Where Men Only Dare to Go after so many years offers a new generation a chance to read the eyewitness report of this bright, observant young soldier who fought through the famous battles in the eastern theater. Royall W. Figg was a member of Parker's Virginia Battery in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Robert K. Krick is the author of numerous books on the American Civil War, including Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic.

Text: From Publisher

CWL-- On Front and Flank: Henry Hunt's Artillery on July 3rd

"Double Cannister At Ten Yards": The Federal Artillery and the Repulse of Pickett's Charge, David Schultze, Rank and File Publications, 1995, 77 pages, maps, order of battle, notes, and glossary.

David Shultz' slim but well packed volume opens up the sources regarding the issue of the role that the Federal artillery played in the repulse of Longstreet's second assault. General Pickett responded to a query concerning the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg with the statement "The Union army had something to do with it." After reading Shultz's book, I would say that the Union artillery definitely had something to do with it. I would guess that there may have been as many Rebel casualties from artillery shells as there were from infantry musket bullets.

Quickly, but thoroughly for the purpose of the book, Shultz covers the organization of the Cemetery Ridge artillery line: those pieces under the command of McGilvery, those under Hazard, and those under Osborn (with a nod to Wainwright). Stretching from Plum Run, to the Copse of Trees, to Zeigler's Woods and to the cemetery gatehouse, Henry Hunt brought the talent and the tubes together in the right spot at the right time.

Schultz convincingly describes the mortal effect which McGilvery's and Osborn's pieces had on the flanks of the Confederate assault. Also, the devastation of the pieces under Hazard, at the Union center from the Copse of Trees to Ziegler's Grove, is fully described. In detail, Shultz succintly describes the orders of Hunt and the orders of Hancock, their contradictions, and the effect of the contradictions had on the destruction on the Union center. Also, the decision to cease fire on McGilvery's line, withdraw of peices on Osborn's line and the Confederate belief that their artillery had swept the Union pieces off the ridge is presented.

The maps in the book are adequate but having Gettysburg Magazine at hand was helpful. "Double Canister at Ten Yards" also works well with the PCN dvd Gettysburg Battlewalks: Henry Hunt and Cemetery Ridge. As a taker of the Gettysburg LBG exam, I would put this book on the study list.

Walking Gettysburg's Battlefield--Henry Hunt At Cemetery Ridge

Gettysburg Battlewalks: Henry Hunt at Cemetery Ridge, Eric Campbell, Pennsylvania Cable Network, 2 hours, 3 minutes, 2006.

Eric Campbell's rapid delivery holds constant through the course of two hours of both general and detailed facts concering Union artillery on July 3rd. Without a nod to the Culp's Hill action from 4:30a to 11a July 3rd, Campbell's complete focus is upon the Union guns that are facing west: Cemetery Hill, Cemetery Ridge, Plum Run and Little Round Top.

Quickly covering Henry Hunt's career and his Civil War activities to July 1863, Campbell argues that Hunt desired his cannoneers to delivery 12 well aimed shots an hour on visible targets. Most cannoneers wished to send up to three shots a minutes at the enemy. Hunt's desire clashed with Winfield Scott Hancock's orders during the afternoon of July 3rd.

The Cemetery Hill artillery, commanded by Major Thomas Osborn of the 11th Corps, stretched from the cemetery gatehouse to Ziegler's Grove and commanded Seminary Ridge from the McMillian Farm to the Bliss Farm. The Cemetery Ridge artillery, commanded by Captain John Hazzard of the 2nd Corps, was massed between Ziegler's Grove to the Copse of Trees near The Angle. The Plum Run artillery, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery of the Artillery Reserve Corps, occupied the Union line from the Copse of Trees to past the Trostle Farm lane.

The placement of the guns by Hunt and his commanders, the delivery of ammunition to the pieces, and reinforcement during the assault was essential to the defeat of Longstreet's second assault. Lee and Longstreet ordered the barrage, which Campbell asserts Lee understood would last only twenty minutes. Most accounts that it lasted about an hour. Campbell does not elaborate difference between what Lee ordered and what Lee got.

The decision to reply to the Confederate bombardment was made by Hancock and against Hunt's orders. Hunt wanted the Rebel assault under long range artillery fire as soon as the troops stepped forward. Hancock's orders diminished the supply of the long range ordinance available for striking the Rebels as they came out of the woods.

The decision to withdraw pieces from Cemetery Ridge and thereby misleading Alexander to conclude that the Federal artillery had been driven away was simultaneously reached by three different generals in three different locations on the battlefield.
Hunt as he rode the Cemetery Ridge line, Osborn on Cemetery Hill and Meade beyond the Taneytown Road. Hunt and Osborn agreed on the withdrawal as a courier from Meade found them and requested the withdrawal.

McGilvery's batteries took Kemper's brigade in their right flank; Osborn's batteries enfiladed Pettigrew's advance. Hazzard's batteries confronted Garnett's and Armisted's brigades head on.

Gettysburg Battlewalks: Henry Hunt at Cemtery Ridge should be viewed with either several issues of Gettysburg Magazine handy or with "Double Canister at Ten Yards": The federal Artillery and the Repulse of Pickett's Charge at hand. Like many of the PCN tours the information delivered is clear, concise and complete within the limits of the dvd format but, unless the viewer is very familiar with the battlefield, the persepective of the PCN camera is limited. The viewer at times wonders just where exactly are the Park Rangers standing while they speak. Campbell has six or seven stops on his tour and he makes the effort to show the audience importance of the terrain and uses 19th century enlarged photographs to show how the tree lines have changed.

Media: Artillery Front!: Live Firing Cannon Videos

PBO Incorporated sells artillery pieces and of course, they must test their products!
Here are the links to the You Tube videos of the firing of loaded cannon at targets. The explosion at the target is amazing!

Look for the amount of smoke at the cannon's muzzle, the recoil of the piece and dust and smoke as the round hits its target and explodes.

http://www.pbocorp. biz/action. htm
the wwwsite of the company

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhHTsx0p2Qg&NR=1
12 pounder Navy boat howitzer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eox-jnTaEgk&NR=1
10 inch siege mortar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QerAiIcGNtY&NR=1
32 pounder field howitzer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G5QQEyqiIs
3 inch Ordinance Rifle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v7bLf2ipmA&NR=1
13 inch Seacost mortar

CWL --- Walking Gettysburg's Battlefield: Artillery Front!

A Concise Guide to the Arillery at Gettysburg, Coco, Gregory A., Thomas Publications, photgraphs, maps, charts, order of battle, notes, glossary, 96 pages, 1998.

In countless ways, Gregory Coco has advanced our knowledge of the battle of Gettysburg. With books focusing upon the primary sources of the battle, such as anecdotes of the wounded and dying, the accounts of the hospitals, the farmsteads, and the soldiers' diaries, Coco has opened the study of Gettysburg for both the casually curious and the energized enthusiast. This particular volume, clearly and concisely provides an overview of the artillery slugfest at Gettysburg, its soldiers, their guns and the amunition of the artillery units engaged.

The Narratives of the Artillery in the Battle of Gettysburg section of the text is at the core of the material. For the Union army, the effectiveness of: each corps' artillery, the reserve artillery, the July 2nd and July 3rd Plum Run Lines, the Emittsburg Road and East Cemetery Hill concentrations, and the Horse Artillery are reviewed. For the Confederate army, the effectives of: each corps' artillery, the concentration fo artillery for the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge, the Horse Artillery and the artillery during the CSA retreat are presented. The contributions and failures of key officers, such as General Henry Hunt and General William Pendleton are reviewed. The successes of General Robert Tyler, Union Reserve Artillery Chief, Lt. Colonel Freeman McGilvery, organizer of the Plum Run Line, and Colonel Edward Alexander, organizer of the artillery of Confederate artillery for Longstreet's assualt and the July 3rd assault are briefly hightlighted.

Other strengths of Coco's work on the artillery is the order of battle, the list of the type and quality of the canons at Gettysburg, and the chart of canon tubes with calibers, powder charges, weight and range of projectiles. Also, brief and well done is the discussion of fuses and the glossary.

Though not a tour guide, this booklet is essential for those visitors driving or walking the battlefield park. Personal tours are enhanced by the maps in this brief volume; positions of the units on July 1 2:30-4:30p, July 2 7:15p, and July 3:15-5:00p are shown in a series of maps. This reader found these maps very helpful, but wished that a fourth and a fifth map showing artillery positions on July 2 4:00p and the East Cavalry Field had been included in the book. Also, the July 3 3:15-5:00p map does not include the artillery positions on South Cavalry Field. Unfortunately the booklet has not been indexed which limits ones quick and handy use of the material relating to commanders and units.

This booklet is recommended for those whose interest lies beyond the two hour driving tour of the battlefield. The best use of Coco's work on artillery will be made by those who have already a good knowlege of the infantry tactics used on the field.