The world of cannon collectors and students is fortunate that Alfred Mordecai in the past and students, more recently, such as Edwin Olmstead, Wayne Stark, James Hazlett, Spencer Tucker, Harold Peterson and others in the present, have presented us with an abundance of excellent research material.
When we were contracted to restore two old guns for the Fort Delaware Society, we went to their writings to assist in the restoration efforts.
The guns were listed as having been made in 1820 and 1821 at a cost of $70 each, but the notation stated that none had been positively identified, and no pattern drawings existed. A gun in Batavia, N.Y., was pictured as possibly being one manufactured from the contract.
The two carriages supplied were of the split trail form. When the iron work on the carriages was cleaned, markings were found establishing one as number 74 from the Washington Arsenal in the year 1830. The other carriage was dated a year later from Washington Arsenal, number 105.
These predate Alfred Mordecai’s great book by a decade and are not pictured. A call to Matt Switlik in Michigan established that both carriages were rare and extremely early survivors of Arsenal carriages.
Again, original drawings were not to be had. (These guns also seem to be design variations between arsenals.) This presented a different set of challenges. Instead of our relying on existing literature for information, it became incumbent on us to generate it ourselves.
It also presented the Fort Delaware Society with a problem in that instead of their having two guns to be fired for demonstration purposes, they had very rare and important artifacts which should not be abused by constant use.
The two guns were found in the 1940s in decrepit condition in a National Guard Arsenal in New Castle, Del., and later restored for the Civil War Centennial by the late Paul Grimes of the Hagley Museum.
Tradition had it that they were used locally here to defend the City of Wilmington from the incursion of Confederate Gen. Jubal Early in 1864 (which fell about 90 miles short).
Lee Jennings, Fort Delaware’s historian, has evidence to indicate the gun crews came from the fort. This evidence makes sense because General Early on horseback was no threat to a fort a mile out in the middle of the Delaware River.
The tradition relative to the pair makes sense for two reasons. First, they were obsolete 6-pdr. guns which would not have been dragged into Federal service. (General Lee had his bronze 6 pdrs. melted and recast to a larger bore.) Secondly, the guns had a lunette ring added to the trail to be used with Civil War-type caissons. This indicates they were in some type of service later in life than the time in which they were built.
Wilmington was a heavy industrial center where some of the Monitors such as the Osagewere built. West of town was the DuPont powder works which was the largest black powder manufacturing site in the United States, and eventually the world.
Fort Delaware was a major prison facility for Southern soldiers and political prisoners. As with Maryland, the loyalty of the state to the Union cause was not very firm. A military presence locally, even with obsolete artillery, made sense to the Union cause.
As an aside, there survives an 1818 Walking Stick gun on a Civil War-era carriage that was used to defend the DuPont powder yards from enemies who did not materialize.
One of the Fort Delaware guns is marked, and the other is not. They are within about one-quarter of an inch of each other dimensionally, at the trunnions.
It is obvious that these are early guns because there is no rimbase on the trunnions (rimbases allow the use of carriages with parallel sides). In addition, there is a circular pan area with a groove to the vent for use with linstock firing instead of friction fuses.
Although the 18th-century design vocabulary is not fully articulated, there is an astragal and fillet between the chase and muzzle and decorative molding between the chase and second reinforce.
The cascabel is bored horizontally to be fastened to the elevating screw (see drawing). The chamber appears to be hemispherical as shown on our drawing. The bores are corroded to the point that using micrometer measurements would be folly.
The marked gun is unusual in that the marking is engraved on the breech area by the vent and not on the trunnions or muzzle. It is marked I C & C BF Va. This stands for John Clark (the I is because they did not engrave J’s well) and Company, Bellona Foundry, Virginia.
Bellona is in Richmond on the James River. It was begun by John Clark in 1816 and continued through the Civil War. The site still exists with an exhibit.
The number 636 is the weight, not the serial number. The records indicate about 122 of these were made for $70 per gun. The workmanship is not sophisticated. According to Olmstead, et al., this is one of the earlier of the Bellona Foundry markings.
Of the 19 varieties in the 6-pdr. gun, this design is apparently the earliest. It is a short fat gun as compared to the Walking Stick which was slim and tended not to withstand being fired very well.
In Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War, page 31, it states that no marked Bellona guns have been found from this contract. Since only one of these guns is marked, and the other gun in Batavia, N.Y., thought to be from this contract (and now proved accurately so) is unmarked, it seems safe to assume that marking was an irregular occurrence.
Although some early cannons were remounted on Civil War type carriages, these tubes retained an earlier style carriage.
The whole restoration project grew. We were first asked if we could drill deep holes in the wooden side plates that had been cut by the local trade school. It became apparent that they had used pine and also had missed some measurements to the scant side.
The ironwork had corrosion problems. After cleaning, it was found that besides the markings, that the integrity of much of the iron work had been compromised to the point of being unusable.
We decided, with approval of the authorities, that we would fix the original parts instead of making new ones. We did fabricate some minor missing parts.
There were two major types of repairs. Pieces that had rusted away were built up with weld and finished by grinding and sanding.
The bolts were another problem. We ground a bit for the lathe to match the rounded threads and “chased” a series of new ends. We had a special tap manufactured to cut the threads in the new nuts.
In all honesty, we cheated a bit because the original large bolts had 7.5 threads per inch, and we replaced them with 8 threads per inch. This difference is because our tool room lathe could not chase the 7.5 tpi, and the tap maker could not make the 7.5 tap. Since the average thread gauge is about 4 inches long, the difference is almost indistinguishable.
There are also some 7/16-inch bolts that were close enough to modern standards not to be of concern.
Apparently Paul Grimes had not sandblasted the metal parts when he replaced the wood about 50 years ago. Both the marked pieces were on the same carriage, and some of the other parts proved to be mixed and matched.
This is not to fault Paul, but is a factor of his instructions given by his boss who was doing the Civil War Centennial folks a favor.
(As a totally unrelated matter, Paul was a close friend, and we interviewed him on tape before he died. He was such a great friend and craftsman and knew so much. The interview specifically included his information about the guns and what he did to them.)
To paraphrase Peter and the Wolf …and the situation was…. We had iron parts, Grimes restored wooden parts in rotten condition, no drawings (because there are none), and some inappropriate new parts.
The first order of business was to extensively photograph everything and do a drawing of the Grimes restoration. The drawing turned out to be full-scale, about 8 feet long, ink on Mylar. It is easier and more accurate to measure off a full-scale drawing than to scale off a drawing of any other size.
Since the cascabel is fastened to the elevating screw, locating the screw accurately was especially important. Being gluttons for punishment, we also drew the tube full-scale on the same reasonably stable medium with the thought that someday there might be a desire to reproduce it.
The State of Delaware had acquired some park sites, one of which had a mill building with seasoned white oak floor joists. This structure had been demolished, and some of the wood was moved about 100 miles south to be used on a project involving a 12-inch coastal defense gun, with which we were helping also.
We purloined some of the oak and machined it to the proper 2.75-inch thickness. The axle wood was another problem, and our friends at Greenbank Mill donated some wood left over from their water wheel rebuilding. Their director, Tony Shahan, is a great traditional wood worker and helped us with mortise and tenon fits between the sides and cross members.
While this might appear easy, please remember that each side flares out 2 degrees from center line — front to back. The cross members are bored and through bolted. We did not indulge in the “pernicious” habit (à la Alfred Mordecai) of burning the bolts through, but did drill with some precision.
Our associate Rick Frunzi was charged with the task of fitting the iron to the wood. We manufactured the wood oversized, and he sanded the side plates to accommodate the irregularly shaped iron. The challenge was to sort out the parts because the carriages fit the tubes and one tube was slightly larger than the other.
The metal work had evolved slightly from number 74 to number 105. Having completed the fitting task, we generously supplied Rick with paint and a brush. Since the guns were to be interpreted in a Civil War setting (and were modified by the addition of the lunette ring), the olive drab scheme was elected over the earlier light blue.
Among the parts either missing or totally unusable were the studs that held the iron to the wood. Each gun has about 120 of these. We made jigs and machined about 250 studs from .25-inch by 2-inch carriage bolts. After being painted they cannot be detected from the originals.
Along with all the other original parts that were not reused, we preserved the few original studs that Paul had saved.
Having the parts in hand, we assembled the first gun by clamping the appropriate iron part to its wooden mate and drilling 3/16-inch holes to receive the .25-inch studs. The studs were then driven (not too gently) into the seasoned oak.
The Fort Delaware Society had purchased replacement wheels. These wheels proved almost correct and suitable for the display intent. Matt Switlik found a Civil War period photograph of a similar gun with slightly different wheels, which he sent. The taper of the axle is slightly smaller than that of the box (or wheel bearing).
Unfortunately the retaining washers and most of the wedges were missing. The wheels were set on the axles, and the distance from the hub to the mortise in the axle was determined. The washers were cut out of round stock in a thickness so that the wheels would turn properly but not be sloppy (about .5-inch thick) and bored to the diameter of the tapered axle at the mortise (about 1.75 inches).
The entire gun was assembled and set up pointing down the driveway so as to properly impress the inspection team, or perhaps intimidate them a bit. The gun was then taken to the fort and exhibited. At the time of the writing of this article, the second gun is ready for finishing, and will be completed when the orders are received.
We learned a lot, especially that split trails were exceedingly more difficult to build than the later ones with parallel sides. We probably should buy stock in Verizon after the time we spent picking Ed Olmstead’s, Matt Switlik’s, Don Stiener’s, and Paul Barnett’s brains. It is good that knowledgeable folks are willing to share (thanks!).
For anyone wishing to visit, the gun is at Fort Delaware. The fort is reached via a boat ride on the Delaforte which leaves Delaware City every hour in the season and goes to three forts, Fort Delaware, Fort Mott and Fort Dupont. While there is a fee for the ride, the forts are free.
Fort Delaware is one of the better surviving System Three forts. It was completed just in time for the Civil War and was used mostly as a prison (not as bad as Elmira). There is an active public program at the fort depicting the Civil War era with first-person interpretation.
Although one can see the later Endicott–Taft modifications for the 12-inch disappearing guns, the earlier history was by far more significant. The fort has an 8-inch Columbiad and a 32-pdr. naval tube on a casement mount which are demonstrated (but not with full service loads).
To help with the visual effect, there are several fiberglass reproductions of coastal defense guns. There is an active restoration program at Fort Delaware. Forts Mott and Dupont are post-Civil War installations located on opposite sides of the Delaware River and designed to catch would-be invaders in a crossfire with Fort Delaware in the center. Their armaments have long since left, although they have the emplacements more or less intact.
(About the Author: Robert A. Howard spent the first 30 years of his career as a curator at the Hagley Museum dealing with archaic technologies and black powder. After “retiring,” he formed a small company (Anchorage Productions) to continue to do the “fun” work for other institutions. Anchorage Productions specializes in challenges that he says most people in their right mind would not undertake.)