Re: Micro Dahlgen # 2
« Reply #29 on: Today at 06:08:37 PM »
M & T, Thanks for the info on the Dahlgens.
Were any Dahlgren mounted on front pivot Barbettes like those at Charleston, S.C.?
Cpt Ed, I have you down for one. Thank you, Dom
If you are talking about this one which was recovered from the sunken wreck of the experimental Federal ironclad, Keokuk, placed on this iron carriage in White Point Gardens at the tip of the Charleston penninsula, no. We are not aware of anything like that existing during the Civil War, however in later years the parks commissions around the country would use anything that was available and free, like this carriage which was government surplus and obsolete by the late 1870s.
However, the possibility for one or maybe several mounted on traditional Confederate carriages such as the 9" Dahlgren mounted on the Wood, Seacoast, Center-Pintle, Barbette, Carriage of a type found up on the Terraplein at Old Fort Jackson which covers the approaches along the Savannah River, a few miles east of Savannah, Georgia, is good. A very large number of U.S. Naval tubes were confiscated by southern forces when they took over the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861. If that yard had been a U.S. Army Armory with Model 1859 Iron, Seacoast, Front Pintle, Barbette Carriages, the Confederates would have used them too.