Author Topic: Historic photo of Civil War Mortars and Cannons (Read 1729 times)

Rock6.3 · « **on:** June 07, 2012, 05:25:36 AM »

The photo shows some very interesting mortar beds and several sizes of cannon and mortars.

I do not know which designs belonged to which side of the war......

KABAR2 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 07, 2012, 05:55:21 AM »

I believe that is an artillery park photographed in Virginia near the end of the war and consisted of cannon captured from the Confederacy it will be a mixed bag of both Union manufacture and Confederate manufacture as they used whatever was at hand.

BoomLover · « **Reply #2 on:** June 07, 2012, 06:47:59 AM »

Nice historic photo, thanks for posting it!

The Jeff · « **Reply #3 on:** June 07, 2012, 10:22:11 AM »

I love pictures like this where all sorts of ordnance is scattered around.

I found some other shots at this location. Search for "Broadway Landing, Appomattox River, Virginia." at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ to get the high resolution .tiff files. All of these pictures are in the public domain.

Check out that Dahlgren rifle with the trunnion band on the left. According to Wikipedia, it's either a 50 or 80 pounder.

Cannoneer · « **Reply #4 on:** June 07, 2012, 02:29:14 PM »

Quote from: The Jeff on June 07, 2012, 10:22:11 AM

Check out that Dahlgren rifle with the trunnion band on the left. According to Wikipedia, it's either a 50 or 80 pounder.

The Jeff,
You seem to have a good eye for recognizing ACW artillery, a lot of people wouldn't have known that that was a Dahlgren rifle.

This is one of my favorite Civil War photographs, and it shows John Adolphus Dahlgren standing in front of one of his 50-pdr rifles, on the deck of the USS Pawnee docked in Charleston Harbor, SC.

The Jeff · « **Reply #5 on:** June 08, 2012, 12:39:58 PM »

Quote from: Cannoneer on June 07, 2012, 02:29:14 PM

The Jeff,
You seem to have a good eye for recognizing ACW artillery, a lot of people wouldn't have known that that was a Dahlgren rifle.

Thanks. Sometimes I think researching cannons is as much fun as building them.

Microboomer · « **Reply #6 on:** June 10, 2012, 02:09:11 AM »

What about the 1840 siege mortar? (Top and bottom pictures of The Jeff's post) Is it an 8" or a 10"? I'm guessing 8", based on trying to get a sense of scale from the confederate Coehorn in the foreground in the bottom picture. The top picture is actually a cross-eyed stereogram - if you can cross your eyes so that your right eye focuses on the left image and vice versa, you get a nice 3-D image. (this takes practice, of course!)
Edit: Duh - I just realized the stereo pair clearly shows "972" stamped on the muzzle. Since the nominal weight of the 8" is 925 lbs, vs. 1800lbs for the 10", it's gotta be the 8"!
andy

Rock6.3 · « **Reply #7 on:** June 10, 2012, 06:21:18 AM »

3 different treatments of the front/rear edges of coehorn mortar bases.

Question: What material was used for the bore covers (what is the correct term?)?

Question: What size were these little guys?

Cannoneer · « **Reply #8 on:** June 10, 2012, 09:31:11 AM »

Rock6.3,
Those are Federal 24-pounder Coehon mortars Model of 1838, and the tompions (also spelled tampion) are in all likelihood made of wood.

The Jeff · « **Reply #9 on:** June 10, 2012, 09:32:20 AM »

Quote from: Rock6.3 on June 10, 2012, 06:21:18 AM

3 different treatments of the front/rear edges of coehorn mortar bases.

Question: What material was used for the bore covers (what is the correct term?)?

Question: What size were these little guys?

The bore covers are called tompions and they're made of wood. I made a quick search through the ordnance manual and one place specified them to be made of maple, and in a second place they're to be "well saturated with oil or grease", but that was referring to long term storage of a cannon.

Those are 24 pounder Coehorns so they had a bore diameter of 5.82" and fired a 5.68" diameter shell.

Cannoneer · « **Reply #10 on:** June 10, 2012, 11:29:22 AM »

Quote from: Cannoneer on August 03, 2009, 07:24:45 AM

The following photo is of a red painted reproduction Confederate mortar bed.

The next three period photos are of different viewpoints of surrendered CSA ordnance at Appomattox, Virginia.

A close up of three coehorns in the right middlground of the picture shows another style of bed that has a simple smooth curved shoulder instead of an angle in the front and rear.

Rock6.3,
You're observation is dead on about the period photo showing three distinct beds for the bronze U.S. Coehorns. In fact, as far as I'm aware, this photo is still the only known source that informs us about the bed with rounded shoulders seen at the far right in the cropped photo (6th photo above).

The red framed bed identified as a reproduction Confederate model is bogus, it's actually a bed of contemporary design that was loaned to a museum, and then a subsequent photo of it was featured in a book; so it was then assumed by some who viewed it to represent a genuine CSA design (4th photo above).

The last photogragh displays a CSA cast iron 24-pdr Coehorn mounted on a plain rectangular bed of Confederate design.

Artilleryman · « **Reply #11 on:** June 11, 2012, 01:48:34 AM »

Thanks for the information about the red frame mortar bed. I have never been able to find a reference that verified its existence.

Microboomer · « **Reply #12 on:** June 11, 2012, 07:01:20 AM »

Ya know, I'd always assumed that the picture shown above was the best period shot available for the Confederate Coehorn, and I've always been PO'd that there is that big stain (fingerprint?) on the muzzle. Following Jeff's link, I find that that picture is only one half of a stereo pair. I downloaded the big TIFF file for the one I hadn't seen and
Voila! No big stain on the Coehorn!