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Author Topic: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries  (Read 1014 times)

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Offline seacoastartillery

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Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« on: May 31, 2013, 10:32:04 AM »
    The purpose of this thread is to shine more light on unusual or mysterious cannons and their unique histories.  We thought it might be useful to start off with the identification and disappearance of the Civil War cannon known as "Whistling Dick".  During the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, this cannon was quite active in it's battery high on the Vicksburg bluffs, on the northern edge of the city, overlooking the Mississippi River. 


Below is a period image of a cannon purported to be the famous, Whistling Dick.  Several different sources claim that this gun was a conversion from an 18 Pdr. smoothbore Siege and Garrison gun M1839 made in an eastern foundry.  This thumbnail is from Corbis which is an excellent historical photo site from which you can order larger versions of this image.
 
 





 
     Take a good look at this cannon, above.  We draw your attention to the cascabel area particularly.  It has breaching jaws, definitely a navy gun feature, also, except for the sharply tapered muzzle, it is quite large, and using the men near it for scale, it looks bigger than any 18 Pdr. siege gun we have seen.  Now take a look, below at a drawing of an 18 Pdr. Siege and Garrison gun M1840 which is what all sources we have found say is the basis for the banded and rifled conversion gun which became the famous, Whistling Dick.  Some eastern foundries cast these in some quantity after each made a 1839 Model gun for study, a pre-production gun.  For a siege gun it is very slender and has a distinct knob in the cascabel area.  This info is from The Big Guns by Olmstead, Stark and Tucker.
 
 
 The 1839-1840 Siege and Garrison Gun thought by many sources to be the soothbore gun, which was later converted by banding and rifling, to become the famous, Whistling Dick of Vicksburg renown.  With the obvious differences in cascabel structure, could the well known historical photograph gun, identified as the "Whistling Dick" cannon of Vicksburg fame, really be made from this type of smoothbore??
 
 
 
 The smoothbore naval gun in the photo below could possibly be the basis gun from which the banded and rifled gun in the well known "Whistling Dick", photograph was made.  It is attributed to The Big Guns by Olmstead, Stark and Tucker.
 
 







 
 
   
      There, that is a start, although we offer no "proved" answers right now, we hope that this information will spark some discussion about this or some other cannon with mystery surrounding it.  Perhaps someone can offer a different story about what happened to it as the war ended.
 
 T&M 
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Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin'-cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets - 'Tss! 'Tss!

From the poem  Screw-Guns  by Rudyard Kipling

Offline Double D

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2013, 03:41:04 AM »
Craig Swain has asked me to post this link here as part of this discussion.

http://markerhunter.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/named-guns-at-vicksburg/''
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Offline seacoastartillery

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2013, 07:00:05 AM »
     Douglas,   Well, looks like Craig Swain agrees with me and that is a real nice feeling.  I try to read all of his artillery blog items as they are extremely well researched and written.  After completely Blowing it on the attempt at identification of your photo of the diorama earlier this week, I was beginning to wonder if I had completely lost my touch!  Ha, not completely, I guess.  And, as I wrote several days ago in the carriage thread, I still believe the Rebels deep sixed the rifled 18 Pdr. in the Mississippi. 

Tracy
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Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin'-cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets - 'Tss! 'Tss!

From the poem  Screw-Guns  by Rudyard Kipling

Offline Cannon Cocker

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2013, 04:43:37 PM »
Interesting info.  Thanks for posting.
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Offline Double D

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2013, 04:57:26 PM »
Whistling Dick is in the river, this bobbed 32PDR sits at the front entrance to  Vicksberg NMP and Widow  Blakley sits on a field siege carriage on a bluff over looking the Mississippi Riiver...got it!
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Offline MKlein

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2013, 06:00:29 PM »
This giant P and J.S.C. on the left trunion should be visible if they think this gun is the one on the 2 Whistling Dick photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919283743/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)
 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919277957/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919278813/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919877040/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919887610/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919903978/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)

The sign said this was brooke rifling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87356288@N06/8919870066/sizes/o/in/photostream/ (larger version)
I think the Wistling Dick is in the River.
I also got measurements if needed.

 
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Offline seacoastartillery

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2013, 10:14:16 AM »
 Posted by: skidmark « on: Today at 12:00:29 AM » 
 Do you see this on Whistling Dick photos?


     Mark,    When I magnify the images I can find, they fuzz out before ANY markings can be discerned.



     Well here goes another mystery cannon story.  The details on this one will hopefully be fleshed out by you guys as we lost all of our research on this one in a computer crash in 2004.  What we recall about it, actually a group of four, all the same type, was that they were seized by Federal naval forces near Liverpool, England in 1864 or 1865 where they had been delivered as ordnance for the Confederate States of America. After that the four went on an ocean journey to some Navy Yard somewhere and then to some other location in the 1870s where more unusual events happened as they were split up.

     This unusual looking cannon is identified as a 9-Inch Blakely Seacoast Rifle per the Robinson's Battery site where the following photo came from:





     I don't pretend to know what happened to the other three cannons seized, but I do remember that the one in the picture ended up at a lake in New York State and is privately owned, but publicly displayed between a road and the shore of that lake.  The original tube was removed for scrap value and then the breech and reinforce sold to a private party who added a pipe very close to original dimensions and displayed it next to some lake in New York.

     We are asking for your help to solve the tortuous journey of this gun, which has markings per the Robinson's Battery site of "Blakely's Patent" and "Faucett Preston & Co. in 1864".  Be sure to visit Robinson's Battery as it is an outstanding site.

Tracy
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Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin'-cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets - 'Tss! 'Tss!

From the poem  Screw-Guns  by Rudyard Kipling

Offline MKlein

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2013, 06:53:27 AM »
Is this a thread on the same guns linked below "Naval cannon I've never ever seen before"
http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php?topic=160662.0
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Offline seacoastartillery

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Re: Artillery Anomalies and Cannon Mysteries
« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2013, 08:48:02 AM »
     Yes, that's where our research went, Mark.  Reply #5 pretty much tells the story.  I believe the site with that info was mainly detailing where the scrap yard obtained it's unusual finds over the years.  The site?  Who knows, all that stuff was lost in a 'puter crash late in 2009.  The second big one for us made us finally buy multiple HD backups.  Cost us $2,800 to have the business data retrieved off that disk!  Thank you! 

Mike and Tracy
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Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin'-cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets - 'Tss! 'Tss!

From the poem  Screw-Guns  by Rudyard Kipling
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