Photos from The Mariners Museum (Image Heavy ~1.5MB)

[The Jeff]

Yesterday I didn't have much to do so I went to the Mariners Museum in Newport News Virginia. The main thing I went to see was a cannon from the CSS Virginia that they recently restored as well as the stuff from the Monitor. It's been a while since I visited last and their collection has really grown. Then there were a few other artillery kinds of things spread throughout the museum. All in all it's a good place to spend an afternoon.

You should be able to click on any of these photos to get a bigger version.


Here's the #2 gun that was destroyed during CSS Virginia's battle with the USS Cumberland. This is a 9" Dahlgren and was the first gun on the port side. My great-great grandfather was on the #4 hot shot gun which would have been the gun next to this one.



This is one of the Monitor's two 11" Dahlgrens being preserved.



This is two pictures I stitched together of a full size model of the fore part of the CSS Virginia. A single banded Brook rifle is being hoisted aboard on the port side, and a gunport shutter on the starboard side. You can walk around on the inside and see a Marsilly style carriage being built.



Here's a cutaway model of the Monitor's turret. Notice the gun port edges are still rough. Later turrets had the ridges filed out, apparently there wasn't enough time to do that with the original Monitor.



These are breech and front sights and covers, hammer, and a fuse recovered from the Monitor's turret.



The plaque near this one says:
"8-inch Mortar, Model 1861, circa 1864
Fort Pitt Foundry
This mortar was found at Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay, Alabama, and was probably mounted there following the fort's capture by Union forces in August 1864."



The round balls are 3 pounders from the war of 1812. No dates given on the bar shot. In the upper right is a magazine lamp for use near the magazine. If I ever get my golfball howitzer finished I'd like to make some of that expanding shot.



A model of a mortar boat.



A bronze rifled cannon. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the plaque, so I know nothing about this one.



Although here's a good shot of the rifling if that makes up for it! I didn't think brining a powder can would be a good idea, but the bore is roughly fist sized.



A swivel gun and other relics from the mid 1500's.


The howitzer on the left is of Spanish origin from 1787, while the mortar on the right is British and had no date listed.



And just for kicks, here's a punt gun for market hunting. It appears to be made of 3 sections of overlapping pipe, you can still see threads on the ends of the outer layers. I wonder what kind of breech it has, and does it conform to the 1 caliber rule??  Someday I'd like to make one simply to hang on the wall.

[Cannoneer]

Thanks for this post, Sir, I enjoyed the photos. The IX-inch Dahlgren was one of two Virginia guns that had their muzzles blown off; did your Great-Great Grandfather leave any record of the battle?









ETA: Great-Great; that would have been quite a trick for your Grandfather to have served on the CSS Virginia.

[GGaskill]

And just for kicks, here's a punt gun for market hunting. It appears to be made of 3 sections of overlapping pipe, you can still see threads on the ends of the outer layers. I wonder what kind of breech it has, and does it conform to the 1 caliber rule??

There are a few threads on this forum about punt guns.  Do a search for them.

[KABAR2]

Sir,

Great photo's from the museum..... Here I live in Chesapeake and have never been there....



From what I can tell this is a Spanish cannon, 1756 pattern the engraving below the Dolphins

appears to be the Cipher for Carlos III  ruled 1759-1788 The Rifling was a later addition

done in the mid 1800's

[Evil Dog]

Haven't been there since the mid-80's when I was stationed at Langley AFB.  A really interesting place to visit.

[wolff]

Good job on the photos   My idiot-proof camera is too smart

[flintlock]

Did they find the cat??? 

I actually had a history class with the professor that was in charge of raising the Monitor, this was in the 70s and they had just found it...The Monitor had a cat on board, when in transport the cannon was plugged to keep water from entering...

When seas got rough and water was coming in, they put the cat in the cannon's bore...

He was curious as to if they had time to put the cat inside before the Monitor sunk off Hatteras...

I have no idea if this is a true story, but I do remember him telling us that...

[KABAR2]

from what I have read they did not find the cat.....

[The Jeff]

Thanks for this post, Sir, I enjoyed the photos. The IX-inch Dahlgren was one of two Virginia guns that had their muzzles blown off; did your Great-Great Grandfather leave any record of the battle?

I have a letter he wrote briefly describing his adventures. He served on two ironclads, the Virginia and the Fredericksburg. He took part in the battle at Drewery's Bluff, and served on the blockade runner CSS Chickamauga which took several prizes. He lost a leg while manning the guns on Battery Buchanan at Fort Fisher which ended his services.

Here's an article he wrote years later: http://cssvirginia.org/vacsn4/original/hj00cvet.htm

Good job on the photos  My idiot-proof camera is too smart

Thanks, but I simply take a ton of photos and pick out the best ones later.

Did they find the cat???  

There was a plaque specifically saying that no cats or coats and shoes were found in either of the Monitors guns. It would have been interesting had it been true, like the dented gold coin that saved George Dixon's leg that archaeologists found in the Hunley.

[JeffG]

Thanks for the great post and the pics!!  Much enjoyed the Dahlgren content!!

[seacoastartillery]

     Thank you, Sir, for sharing all those beautiful photos.  We particularly like the one of the Rifled Spanish gun muzzle.  The old Cannon S-50 was failing badly at that time and indoor shots were just about impossible on our east coast trip in 2007. You should have seen our shot of the 11" Dahlgren Shell Gun in the de-mineralization tank.  It was fuzzier than a Cottontail Rabbit Convention.  Yours does that important process justice.  Hope you don't mind if we add a few, almost all outdoor shots of the Full Size Monitor Replica that was built to give visitors a sense of scale when viewing this vessel from anywhere on it's deck.  We were very pleased to see what the pilot house looked like on this first monitor.

     We have read the report of the battle by the ship's Executive officer, Lt. Samuel Greene more than once and always wondered what the 'iron logs' and iron plate top looked like.  After a lucky shot By Jones' gunners on Virginia exploded against the pilot house manned by Monitor's Captain, John Worden, partially dislodging several of the 'logs', tearing a corner of the thick top plate off and wounding the Captain's face severely, blinding him, Lt. Greene assumed command of Monitor and returned her to a position in the roadstead where she could protect the Minnesota.  See our photo of this important Monitor feature below.

Sir, we will fire an evening salute to you tomorrow for initiating this very interesting thread!

Thank you.

Mike and Tracy

     Unfortunately none of our photos will load into this thread like they have for four years now, by transferring the link and clicking on the Insert Image icon in the tool bar;  in fact none of the tool bar icons get you anything, no Bold, no Italics, no underline, etc., etc.

Mike and I both love a good drawing.  We have seen many thousands over 35 years of inspecting parts, but this one that I'm standing by is one of the most interesting.




This turret shot is from a close-up from a different direction and gives you some idea for how much the Swedish inventor loved Bronze!  Captain John Ericsson designed those special carriages very well.  They held the heavy Dahlgren tubes in rigid alignment with the carriages all those years even though they were upside down!




The pilot house from which Captain Worden steered the Monitor during the Battle of Hampton Roads.




The turret.  How would you like to buck 1" rivets all day at the shipyard?



Isn't it curious that most of the damage to the bronze propeller was on the trailing edge, not the one likely to first contact the ocean bottom off Cape Hatteras?




Old Glory, beautiful on the bow.

[dan610324]

swedish quality   
yeah I know that Im very shy 

[seacoastartillery]

     Two things, among many, that Swedes have to be proud of are John Ericsson's Monitor and Limpa Bread.  I remember smelling the wonderful smell of fresh Limpa bread throughout the home of my aunt and uncle in Connecticut every Christmas for years and years.  Their name was Carlson.

     Dan,  You are a man of many talents, acting as if you are shy is not one of them.

Tracy

[The Jeff]

While you're on the subject of the Monitor, here's a few more pictures:


This was labeled as a "bore scraper" and the plaque says it "was used to clean accumulated gunpowder residue from the interior of the gun, thus improving the weapon's efficiency."


Next to the bore scraper is a "shot web" which was used to "hoist solid shot and exploding shell from below decks into the turret, using block and tackle. Solid shot for an XI-inch Dahlgren weighed 165 pounds while exploding shells weighed 135 pounds."


And here's the Monitor's 1,350 pound anchor. I was about to resize some shots of the propeller, but it looks like Mike and Tracy have got that one covered.

Sir, we will fire an evening salute to you tomorrow for initiating this very interesting thread!

Thanks! I would join you, but I somehow doubt the campus police will be amused.

Thanks for the replies, I didn't think this post would get that much attention. Maybe I'll try to get up to Yorktown and do a similar thread about the guns I find there, since I only drive past four times a week. 

[dan610324]

ok , but how about timid then ??   

[Cannoneer]

Sir,

I appreciate the link to the article your great-great-grandfather wrote; there are some historians that have finely honed writing skills, and who also know how to keep a readers interest alive when relating factual data, but to me there's still nothing that equals reading historical accounts written by the individuals that actually observed (and participated in) the action as it took place in front of them.   

[little seacoast]

I'm glad you gave us that second shot of the bore scraper, at first glance I thought it was all one piece of equipment and couldn't imagine what an artificial leg with a claw foot was for, much less how you'd get somone to wear it to clean a bore.

[seacoastartillery]

     Sir,   That is a real interesting bore scraper that you found at the Mariner's Museum.  We are always looking for pics of the seacoast guns, so when we saw the one below at Fort Monroe in their Casemate Museum, we were delighted to see a marine shape had obviously inspired the form of the powder residue scraper plates.  Don't the curved plates on the end of this 15" Rodman Gun powder scraper look somewhat like the tips of a squid's tentacles?  We think they do.  This photo shows one of the 15" Rodman Experimental Battery guns oriented NNE of the fort along 1,500 yards of sandy beach.  Huge chunks of failed gun tubes litter the sand at the edge of this firing range.  This is another great museum who's existence is threatened by Fort Monroe being placed recently on the base closure list.   See it while you still can.

Mike and Tracy


An unusual shaped powder residue scraper.  Note the dark edge on each scraper plate of this tool.  It may have been used just prior to that photo being taken.  Our opinion!  Bye the way, next to the scraper is an artillery sponge.  That's no ear swab!!  That's a seacoast artillery sponge!

[KABAR2]

Living here in Chesapeake I have taken great interest in the goings on with the fort....
while the city developes plans for the property and developers clamer to get in on all
this new found land the fort proper is supposed to be preservered and the casemate
museum along with it, they have done some major renovations in the past two years
and renovations and improvments to the exibits continue to be made, so there is hope
that it will continue as it is.  As for the land...... it will be years before all of it is is cleared
of unexploded ordnance...... and I have a feeling that with the first run of a bulldozer
and more is unearthed developing will be put on hold till the rest of it is cleared.