Artillery Quiz, a Test of the Waters

[seacoastartillery]

     I am starting to gather a few photos together for a Feb. or March 2011, ‘What is it?  Where is it?’ Contest.  I thought maybe a test of the waters would be prudent before doing all the work necessary for a full contest.  So, I selected one photo of a cannon we located in New England.  Can you tell us it’s exact type, (bore size is never required), and it’s exact location.  Please tell us how you determined it’s type and found it’s location.

Clues:

     On one of the new U.S. quarters is depicted a sturdy oak tree which lived from the late 1500s until 1856.  This cannon lies on the west side of a north-south road in New England, approx. 35 miles west of this oak.  The cemetery shown is east of the gun and is long and narrow.  It’s central axis  goes through the gun tube at a right angle and eastward toward the oak’s location.  A Union Major General who was killed at Spotsylvania and who had a Union fort named for him is buried in this cemetery very close to his hometown.  This fort was the scene of many heavy artillery duels in the last year of the Civil War and was rarely referred to by it’s proper name.  Some Union soldiers called it “Fort Damnation”.  (My bad, they actually called it "Fort Hell". Both forts were engaged in the same, nasty, 'Trench Warfare' used in the siege of a Virginian city.)This was added after the questions were answered.

Tracy & Mike

[Double D]

Major General  John Sedgewick was the highest ranking Union Officer killed in the  Civil War.  He was killed  by long range shrapshooters and is buried in Cornwall Hollow Cemetery, Litchfield County, Connecticut  USA.  The  gun is a model of 1839

[seacoastartillery]

  Well done, Double D.  Very good info and quickly found too.  I can tell he found the Connecticut Monuments site.  It give the cannon's model date, but not the type.  To finish this one we need the type of cannon pictured.  Anybody?  There are two key words which describe this type of heavy cannon.

Thanks, DD.

T&M

[Max Caliber]

Looks like one of the seacoast howitzers, patterns of 1839 or 1841.

[Zulu]

8" Seacoast Howitzer model 1839
Zulu

[Zulu]

Max beat me by 43 seconds.
Zulu

[Double D]

Would the missing two words be heavy experimental?

[seacoastartillery]

     Thank you gentlemen!  Thank you Double D., Max Caliber and Zulu. We believe it is a good omen that there is this much interest in solving the quandaries about this one photo.  We will proceed with the preparation of the 9th, full, "What is it?  Where is it?" Contest due for release in the merry month of March, 2011.

Tracy & Mike

[Double D]

    I am starting to gather a few photos together for a Feb. or March 2011, ‘What is it?  Where is it?’ Contest.  I thought maybe a test of the waters would be prudent before doing all the work necessary for a full contest.  So, I selected one photo of a cannon we located in New England.  Can you tell us it’s exact type, (bore size is never required), and it’s exact location.  Please tell us how you determined it’s type and found it’s location.

Clues:

     On one of the new U.S. quarters is depicted a sturdy oak tree which lived from the late 1500s until 1856.  This cannon lies on the west side of a north-south road in New England, approx. 35 miles west of this oak.  The cemetery shown is east of the gun and is long and narrow.  It’s central axis  goes through the gun tube at a right angle and eastward toward the oak’s location.  A Union Major General who was killed at Spotsylvania and who had a Union fort named for him is buried in this cemetery very close to his hometown.  This fort was the scene of many heavy artillery duels in the last year of the Civil War and was rarely referred to by it’s proper name.  Some Union soldiers called it “Fort Damnation”.

Tracy & Mike

Here is my research methodology.

Google: Union Major General who was killed at Spotsylvania

Hit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sedgwick

Google: Major General John Sedgwick

Hit: http://www.sedgwick.org/na/families/robert1613/B/2/9/2/B292-sedgwick-john1813.html  click on internal link Grave of John Sedgwick, at FindAGrave.com, great color photos of his grave and memorial.

To ID the cannon  go to:    
Where to find Blackpowder Cannons and shooting supplies inthe stickies and scroll down to the bottom to:

MISC. links

• Civil War Artillery page

and click.  Open up the page links on the left for guns, and find a cannon that looks good and make a SWAG. 

May not be able to to take part in the  March contest. That is when I will be going on national tour.  The wife and I are headed to  Maryland to take care of our  Grand daughters while Son and Daughter in law are out of town.  Grand daughters and I are going to bomb the fish  in Son's fish pond with cement filled pop cans from a popcan mortar.  Son won't be the there to stop us and the girls will think it is great fun.

[seacoastartillery]

     

Would the missing two words be heavy experimental?

     Sorry, didn't see this until I had to take a call and left for a while.  No, but didn't the Paulsen brothers buy one with that description and the two words we were looking for, (i.e. seacoast howitzer), from a location in Mass. some time ago?

Thanks for that web research primer, Double D.  Good logical queries yield good information quickly.  We will miss you in March, but bombing the fish in the pond with your grand daughters sounds like a hoot!! 

Tracy and Mike

[Spuddy]

I haven't looked at the other posts yet so here it goes.  It looks like a Model 1841 8 inch seacoast howitzer located in Cornwall Hollow (Goshen) Conn.  introduced in 1839, but for practical pruposes called Model 1841.  My new christmas present is the source of this information.  Page 52. Thank you Mr. Ripley.

Thank you M&T

[Double D]

     

Would the missing two words be heavy experimental?

     Sorry, didn't see this until I had to take a call and left for a while.  No, but didn't the Paulsen brothers buy one with that description and the two words we were looking for, (i.e. seacoast howitzer), from a location in Mass. some time ago?

 

Tracy and Mike

I only tossed out "heavy experimental" to cover a base after Max  and Z tossed in Seacoast  Howitzer, in case they were wrong.   

Actually son would prefer we bomb a snapper or two that eat his fish..but what ever, cans will go in the pond, water will splash, mud will fly, and the girls will clap and squeal, like, well girls.

[Cat Whisperer]

...
Actually son would prefer we bomb a snapper or two that eat his fish..but what ever, cans will go in the pond, water will splash, mud will fly, and the girls will clap and squeal, like, well girls.

It doesn't get any better than that!   

[Ex 49'er]

...
Actually son would prefer we bomb a snapper or two that eat his fish..but what ever, cans will go in the pond, water will splash, mud will fly, and the girls will clap and squeal, like, well girls.

It doesn't get any better than that!   

Priceless!!!!!

[seacoastartillery]

I haven't looked at the other posts yet so here it goes.  It looks like a Model 1841 8 inch seacoast howitzer located in Cornwall Hollow (Goshen) Conn.  introduced in 1839, but for practical purposes called Model 1841.  My new Christmas present is the source of this information.  Page 52. Thank you Mr. Ripley.

Thank you M&T 

     Live and learn!  I don't believe we have ever faced a dilemma such as this one before.  The exhaustive heavy artillery research that went into the recent, and most revered reference book on the subject, The Big Guns  Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon, is almost universally recognized as the ultimate Go-To book on this subject.  We believe, however, that just because the authors and their research assistants broke previous categories of ordnance down into smaller, more accurate classifications, that does not negate the importance, nor the eminent practicality of the information brought to light by excellent books like Spuddy's, Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War by Warren Ripley.  So, while The Big Guns indicates the 'Pattern of 1839' is a more definitive description of this cannon, Warren Ripley's Model 1841, in this case, is accurate as well and therefore is accepted as an answer to the quiz and would be acceptable as an answer to a full-blown Contest question as well.

     And, if Mr. Ripley writes that the Ordinance Manuals of 1841 and 1861 designated this cannon as a Model 1841 we believe him, but after raising two teenagers to adulthood, it's awfully hard to get out of the ingrained habit of 'Trust and Verify', so we did just that and looked up the types of ordnance table on page 13 of the 1861 Manual, and there it was, '1841', just as Ripley said it would be.  The photos below indicate the diligence we excercise in the pursuit of providing the best, most accurate answers possible.  Fairness to all is really Big on our agenda and will continue to be.

FYI, the photos below merely confirm what the previous text says,

Tracy & Mike

P.S.  Thank you, Spuddy, for an excellent answer.


From Spuddy's new book, the answer is on page 52 in our copy also.  We have edition No. 1, released in 1970 and purchased by me in 1973 from SBR.




Warren Ripley references The Ordnance Manual of 1861 as a source for the 1841 designation, so here is our copy that we checked.




And on page 13, at the bottom we see what Mr. Ripley saw in the 1960s when he was researching for his new book.