Starr, You are correct, New Canaan, CT it is. After visiting my uncle in Newington near Hartford, Mike and I swung down to Fort Trumbull just south of New London and the Naval Submarine Base on the Thames River. It was closed. so we snapped some shots of those beautiful Rodman Gun carriages in the Water Battery and headed for New York. Lucky for us we stopped to look at the 4.5" Blakely Siege and Naval Rifle in New Canaan, CT. This is about 25 miles NW of Norwalk on the CT shore.
It's an interesting siege rifle with features lending itself to naval use as well. The cascabel breeching loop is provided for a naval mounted, recoil limiting hawser. The bulbous breech and the reinforce, presumably steel separates this gun from it's cousins at Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, Georgia. There are two 4.5" Siege and Naval Rifles there, just where they were manned by Confederate artillerymen in 1862 during the investment of Ft. Pulaski by Federal artillery batteries miles away on Tybee Island. You can easily see from the photos below that the two siege rifles at Pulaski are quite different in configuration from the one in New Canaan, CT.
The only markings we found on the Connecticut rifle were the words "Blakley's Patent" on the top of the reinforce just in front of the breech. No other markings were visible. We have not yet learned where it came from before being mounted by a the Samuel P. Ferri Post, G.A.R. #61. Perhaps if someone has the time to research that post's activities around the turn of the last century, further information will be revealed about the provenance of this Blakely siege rifle.
A dimensioned field drawing of the CT gun can be found in the link within Reply #5 above.
Tracy and Mike
Mike is measuring the muzzle to back of breech reinforce dimension. This is called the length of tube dim. If you add the cascabel length dim. you get the O.A.L. Note reinforce, breech and cascabel configuration of this Blakely gun in New Canaan, Connecticut. It is very different than the two 4.5" Blakely siege and naval guns at Fort Pulaski.
This view shows the unique breech and cascabel of the Connecticut rifle. The only markings we found were the words,
"Blakely's Patent". These were located on the reinforce just ahead of the breech.
This is a scan of our old chemical photo of one of two Fort Pulaski, GA Blakely guns. You can clearly see that the reinforce and breech and cascabel of this gun is notably different than the New Canaan Blakely. Same size bore and similar lengths, but very different config. on the aft. end. Can this be the same model with these notable differences? Confederate artillerymen fired these guns from barbette positions at the Federal breeching batteries on Tybee Island one to 2.5 miles away during the 30 hour bombardment of 1862. Confederates were forced to capitulate when the main magazine was almost breeched.
