We decided to limit the scope of this update of the 7” Treble-Banded Brooke Seacoast and Navy Rifle M1862 so we could show WHY we created each of the gun’s features as we did. If you should want to build an authentic cannon someday, the first segment, “Markings” should be of interest. Absolutely essential in any of the finer details such as the elevation gear details or the Markings, is the diligent research you do before you make the bronze lifting screw or lift a hammer to smack a steel stamp.
Here is a tip: Buy the best research books that you can afford and buy every one you can find on your subject. What we do is to make our research materials budget part of the Project Budget along with steel, brass, white oak, tooling and the like. The six that we used for the Brooke build are
The Big Guns by Olmstead, Stark and Tucker,
Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War by Ripley and
Ironclads and Big Guns of the Confederacy, The Journal and Letters of John M. Brooke edited by his grandson George M. Brooke, Jr. Three others played a minor role, but did help us figure out actual dimensions on the original bolts and shell used by our particular Brooke gun. There was one on fuzes that came out recently which helped us design a mini fuze for our equipment and implement collection that is sold with our seacoast guns. The other was a book on the art of Conrad Wise Chapman commissioned by Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beaureguard to paint all significant seacoast gun batteries in the defense of Charleston, South Carolina. Haven’t seen that one in four years, but it’s around here somewhere.
Usually the Foundry I.D. marking and the Foundry Number of the piece are found in the same place. The Foundry Number is not the same as the gun’s Registry Number which is a consecutive number corresponding to each gun made for a particular government contract. The Foundry Number is a Foundry process number which follows the gun through all stages of manufacture. Our big Brooke ironclad killer does not have a registry number, just a FDY number. Most of the number and character impression markings on the Tredegar Iron Works (marked with T F for Tredegar Foundry) cannon and those used on W.P.F. (West Point Foundry) cannon are very similar. We found out why this is recently when making out a detailed list of Brooke gun stamps to be made by a custom maker. From reading about 19
thcentury marking practices in
The Big Guns, we came across this passage: “Furthermore, on 15 Sep 1856, Alger (Cyrus Alger & Company, C.A. & Co. of South Boston, Mass.) was credited $45 for a set of 18 cast steel dies of .75-inch height for use by Benjamin Huger at Tredegar Foundry.” So from this passage we learned that, not only did the Tredegar buy steel marking stamps from a northern cannon foundry which most certainly used the same, but also that the size (height) of those stamps was .75-inch. Our 1/6 scale stamp height must then be .125” or 1/8 inch.
For just the location of the T F 1717, (foundry identification and foundry number), our research in
The Big Guns revealed that this information jumped around quite a bit in the years leading up to the Civil War. “Tredegar numbers appeared on muzzle faces at least until 1852 and were relocated in to the right rimbase face prior to 1858 in conformance with Regulations. During the war, with only one exception as yet found, they were returned to the upper muzzle face, becoming as well virtually infallible identification of the maker.” Maybe our gun located at Fort Moultrie is that exception, the authors of
The Big Guns don’t say. Our three on sight inspections of the muzzle face reveal that there are no markings there.
So where is the logical place to place the T F 1717 markings? We believe, after diligently searching the whole tube for those marks, that the broad surface of the effective rimbase, which in our case on the 7” Brooke, is the outer surface of the Right Trunnion Yoke. In other words a return to the previous marking location or, in the case of our gun with it’s applied trunnion ring, as close as you can get to the right rimbase face. Please see the photos below to understand where this is. There will be other segments to this update posted in the near future on blued hardware, making the elevation screw receiver plate and the front dispart and rear stadia sights for the 7” Brooke.
Tracy
This photo from our website gallery on the 100 Pdr. Parrott Seacoast and Navy Rifle M1861 showing the style of letters and numbers commonly used by North and South during the mid-19
th century.
This is the Brooke applied Trunnion Ring, tapered to fit the tube, with roughed out front sight mass and rectangular clocking bosses to keep the front sight mass perpendicular to the rear stadia sight. What looks like rimbases cannot be used, because they will not bear on the upper carriage cheeks.
This photo shows the U-shaped Trunnion Yoke and front end of the connecting Breech Strao that, together form the effective rimbase on which the cheeks bear.
This photo shows the Breech Strap before it is connected to the Trunnion Yoke by the steel double dovetail keys. In his journal Commander Brooke complained that it took a full week for the Foundry mechanics to fit the dovetail keys into their female dovetail slots on one gun. The design was artistic, but overly complicated. We finally found a high-res original photo showing these details and now believe that when Brooke went south for a sight setting and ordnance testing trip in 1863 to the Drewry's Bluff batteries, that the foundry mechanics rebelled and came up with a superior and far simpler connecting hardware design and used it on the other two in the shop. The double dovetails were gone! The markings can be stamped on the upper branch of the Trunnion Yoke near where the vertical wedge which draws the yoke and breech strap up tight is located. Although the left trunnion is shown, the markings would be stamped on the right side Trunnion Yoke.
