The "Swamp Angel” as the mounted Parrot gun was called, began bombarding the defenses of the city. This gun shot accurately six miles. When the muzzle was blown off, it still operated accurately.
The author of this article has the 10” Parrott which operated from Battery Strong in the Morris Island ‘parallels’ against Confederate held, Fort Sumter, and subsequently lost about two feet of it’s muzzle due to a premature shell explosion, and which was then “chipped back” to the end of the cracks and went on to give good service with accuracy as acceptable as before for more than 300 rounds, confused with the 8” Parrott known as the Swamp Angel which burst through the breech, upon firing the 36th round toward the City of Charleston, completely disabling the gun.
Neither of these guns shot their projectiles six miles! The 8” Parrott shot into the lower 25% of the peninsular city with a 4 or 5 block accuracy to a maximum range of 7,400 yards or 4.2 miles, only about 2/3 of the range claimed.
FYI,
Mike and Tracy
