Compagnie Royale D’Artillerie (CRA) of Quebec installed the largest cannon it has made — a 7500-pound 32 pdr. — at Fort Fisher State Historic Site on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina last summer.
The Fort Fisher Recreation Committee bought the 115-inch $30,000 gun which reproduces a 32-pdr. Navy gun of 57 hundredweight that was rifled and banded by the Confederates. The fort displays three 32-pdrs. which were salvaged from the USS Peterhoff which sank during an attack on the fort.
CRA President Guy Charlesbois says that when Leyland Smith approached CRA to make the reproduction “we were thrilled. We had always wanted to make a really big gun but we never had the time between two projects to actually go beyond the daydreaming stage.”
Charlesbois says that most historical cannon manufacturers use castings of either iron or bronze, using steel sleeves to line the bores for safety. “CRA uses hammer-forged normalized steel and then machines the raw stock into a finished gun tube,” he says.
“Steel is many times stronger than any kind of cast-iron or bronze and we are proud of the fact that our guns are probably the strongest in the world,” he says. “But they are also quite a challenge for our team of machinists.”
It was decided that the replica would not be rifled. Charlesbois says cleaning between firings would be easier with a smooth bore and safety was also a consideration since rifled bores tend to rust more and retain embers between shots.
“On such a big gun, drilling a blind hole to make the bore is impractical, so we decided to use a separate breech that would be screwed into the tube much like on modern guns,” he explains. They first drilled the 20-inch diameter, 10-foot-long round blank with a hole of the right diameter for a gun of this caliber.
“The hollowed-out tube, still weighing around 10,000 pounds, was then turned to the proper profile, shaving a good 3,500 pounds of its weight,” he says.
“The breech area was then threaded over a 9-inch length using a very large artillery thread.” He says the threading looks like a modified buttress thread and is used in modern artillery pieces such as 155mm howitzers.
“However, our thread is uninterrupted and once screwed in place the breech block was welded to the tube.” Charlesbois says this method of construction has several other advantages beside allowing them to make very long and very large bores using a trepanning borer.
“It also permits us to easily reproduce any kind of chamber configuration appropriate for the gun being made. In the case of the 32 pdr., the original specs called for a round-bottom chamber that was machined to a mirror-smooth finish in the breech.”
While work on the barrel proceeded, other parts of the tube were fabricated. “The breech plug itself was machined and threaded, the trunnions were turned and then machined in order to fit the conical taper of the barrel and finally the 24-inch diameter reinforcing band was machined on a horizontal borer.”
When the parts were welded together, the welds were ground by hand, polished smooth and then the entire gun was sandblasted before painting to give it the appearance of a solid casting.
“As is our custom here at CRA, we left the piercing of the vent for last,” says Charlesbois. “This is always the crowning moment in all the guns we make and it is also always a stressful operation as a broken drill bit or a miscalculated boring angle can really ruin your day. Especially when piercing a 9-inch breech-wall!”
On its arrival at Fort Fisher, the tube was lowered to the ground in order for it to be proof-fired before placing it on its carriage. “The proofing of a new gun barrel is a time-honored tradition that was essential in the old days when metallurgy was not what it is today,” Charlesbois explains.
“Leyland, not wanting to take any chance, therefore decided that his new gun would also have to pass that test. Nobody was much worried on our team since the gun was designed to fire shells weighing more than 100 pounds with a full load of powder and the proofing was to be done without any projectile.”
Eight pounds of black powder was loaded into the gun and it was fired while on the ground. “It still recoiled a good foot. Of course, no damage was done except to the lawn,” reports Charlesbois.
The gun was emplaced on its carriage by a crane. “The first shot fired with the gun properly emplaced was a proud moment for everyone involved in this project,” says Charlesbois. “With a load of eight pounds of black powder, seeing this huge gun recoil on its carriage bed is quite a sight.”
The Morning Star of Wilmington reported “one of the biggest bangs in the historic site’s history” in the firing commanded by Col. Jack Travis.
Civil War artillery historian Wayne Stark says that there were 173 32-pdr. Navy guns of 57 hundredweight among the 1198 heavy guns appropriated when the Confederates captured Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Va., early in 1861. The captured heavy cannon were of all sizes and types, with bores from 24-pdr. to XI-inch.
Among them were several types of 32 pdrs. Stark says the 32 pdr. of 57 hundredweight was considered the most reliable of the heavier 32-pdr. Navy guns at that time. (It is illustrated on page 40 of his book The Big Guns.)
Seven hundred and forty-four of these 32-pdrs. of 57 hundredweight were made for the U.S. Navy from 1846 to 1852. None were made later.
The guns taken from Gosport were shipped throughout the Confederacy wherever cannon were needed, many of them being rifled and banded as required. Of the 744 32 pdrs. of 57 hundredweight that were made, there are 102 known survivors, six of which were rifled and banded by Confederates.
According to Fort Fisher information posted on its Web site, the fort was mostly earth and sand. Little remains because of erosion. It kept U.S. ships out of the Cape Fear River and Wilmington, the last major Confederate port, which was important for smuggling in provisions.
The sea face had 22 guns in 12-foot batteries bounded on the south side by two larger batteries 45 and 60 feet high. The land face was armed with 25 guns distributed among 15 mounds, each 32 feet high.
The Union Army and Navy attacked Fort Fisher on Dec. 24, 1864, and Jan. 12, 1865. The fort was bombarded by Federal ships and assaulted by more than 8,000 infantry. It fell on Jan. 15.