Plunder from Fort Shenandoah

[cannonmn]

I wandered around Fort Shenandoah during the NSSA National Matches on Friday and found two shells I wanted, priced reasonably, so they came home.  The Spanish shells, ca. 1862-1880 fit either bronze rifles converted from older smoothbores, or newly-cast (1863 and later) bronze rifles.  I suspect these shells came back as souvenirs from the Spanish-American War.  They reportedly came from a residence in Bat Cave, NC, but of course that's really not important.  Since there are a few weapons in the collection that take these shells, of course I wanted them to display alongside the guns. The shells are 3.31 in. diameter, 6.6 in. long, weigh 9 lbs. and have two rings of six studs as shown.  I'm not sure whether the studs are zinc as I thought, or lead as Mr. Melton's website suggests.  I would have thought lead would be too soft for the application.

The slideshow features a typical Spanish newly-made Beaulieu-system rifle.  The tube is 63 in. long and weighs 320 kilos.  The bronze used to cast it was made by melting down older cannons.  The tube was cast at the Royal Cannon Foundry at Seville.  As the plate indicates, it was captured at San Juan, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War.  The royal cypher engraved on the breech is the letter I and number 2, for queen Isabella II of Spain.

I'd like to know exactly what the marks on the muzzle indicate.  Muzzle marks on Spanish guns of that period generally indicate the type and caliber of the gun, but precisely what is meant by "L . 8 Co." I'm not sure.  The meaning of the letter "L" escapes me, probably because I don't speak Spanish, for one thing.  The "8 Co." on an earlier smoothbore means "8-pounder, short model." so perhaps the "Co" (for Corto) is the same.  Perhaps "8" is an approximation of the projectile weight, and the piece was known as a rifled 8-pounder?  Someone please explain the exact meaning of the "L . 8 Co." marking.

Shell description from Melton website:
http://www.civilwarartillery.com/projectiles/rifled/SpanishShell.htm

Brief article about Gen. A.H.T.T. de Beaulieu and his system of artillery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Treuille_de_Beaulieu

Slideshow of a cannon with Beaulieu-system rifling:
http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/forums5/?action=view&current=d00f04c9.pbw








The .310 lead balls in the small red box will be used in the 32-barrel volley gun.  There are enough in the box for three volleys with a few left over.

[GGaskill]

... but precisely what is meant by "L . 8 Co." I'm not sure.

Maybe that is L. & Co., an abbreviation of the maker's name?

[cannonmn]

Thanks, good guess, but the maker is indicated on the breech by "F. de S."  which means "Fundacion de Sevilla" (pardon omission of any required accent marks) or "Cast in Seville" (meaning at the Royal Cannon Foundry in Seville.)  During most of the 18th and 19th centuries, Spain ran two very large royal cannon foundries, one at Barcelona and one at Seville.  With that very large production capacity, there was no need for contracting any of the casting to private foundries.

[cannonmn]

I had an inspiration this morning, since there's an early 19th C. 8 pounder Spanish smoothbore in the collection with "8 Co." stamped on the upper muzzle face (meaning 8-pounder Corto) I'm guessing the "L . 8 Co" mark means "rifled 8 pounder, short."  Now all I need to do is look up the proper Spanish military term for "rifled" and see if that word begins with "L."  Does anyone know before I kill a lot of time with translation sites?   

I don't know if this is significant or not, but the older smoothbore guns the Spanish rifled with this system beginning in 1862 were four-pounders.  The 8-pounder designation may have been arrived at by simply doubling the weight of the comparable round shot.  If you are going to make calculations in this context, remember Spanish pounds of that era were the same as French pounds, which in turn were equal to about 1.1 English pounds.

[cannonmn]

Hmmm,  "rifled cannon" in Spanish seems to be "cañón rayado" so that doesn't fit the marking very well.

[Cannoneer]

Mightn't the L. signify libra, for pound?

[cannonmn]

Mightn't the L. signify libra, for pound?

Well since it always preceeds (always being the two cannons I've checked) the "pounder" number, that would certainly seem to be a possibility worth running down.

Does anyone know what word is used in Spanish to indicate "pounder" designation of a cannon?  Perhaps it is some variant of "libra" and that should be common sense, but I don't want to make any brash assumptions since I don't speak Spanish at all.  Also, to ass-u-me is to make an a-- out of u and me, as I was taught in the Navy.

[cannonmn]

So Boom's guess is looking good if you look the cannon designations in this Spanish-language article on Armstrong:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca%C3%B1%C3%B3n_Armstrong

[Victor3]

 Just a WAG, but the "L" might indicate "largo" (long) since the projectile designed for it is longer than a ball. So the translation might could be:

 "Long (largo) shell 8# bore short (corto) gun."

 But probably not...