The interest in mid-size field artillery has grown steadily in recent years, along with an appetite for “full-scale” cannon. As a one time owner, many years ago, of a 3/4-scale 10 pdr. Parrott, I really enjoyed the modest heft and economical ammo consumption of a 2-inch plus rifled cannon.
In my reading of Civil War history I was impressed with the fairly frequent mention of the 2.2-Inch Confederate Mountain Rifles, at least in the Trans-Mississippi region of my youth. As a penniless college student, about 1959, 1 watched helplessly when one such cannon came up for sale, offered by Jackson Arms Company in Dallas, Texas; it hardened my resolve to pursue a nice mid-size/full-scale field gun.
A few years later, after moving to Michigan, I read a story with great interest about the capture of a 2.2-Inch CSA bronze rifle, with limber, by Michigan troops in 1865 and a second capture of a small CSA bronze rifle without carriage, dug up in a cemetery from a grave labeled “small pox.” I mistakenly assumed these were all Mountain Rifles. I also learned the bronze trophy guns had been scrapped in World War II, so forgot about them for 30 years
About seven years ago, I got interested in the mountain rifle’s carriage hardware which had escaped destruction. I decided to scour all possible sources for photos of these captured guns, with the hope of learning more about the Mountain Rifle carriage.
After a few lengthy sessions in the Michigan State Archives in Lansing, I turned up photos of the Mountain Rifle on its carriage. But the real shocker was not the carriage.
A photo taken in the late 1880s in the armory in the capitol building featured the state’s prize 1-inch M1879 Gatling in the foreground, but it shows a partial side view of the Mountain Rifle carriage, and its limber. And on top of the limber was an unidentified, unmounted breechloading cannon; just like one I had seen in a friend’s collection, for years.
In the early 1970s my good friend Ken Baumann of Milan, Mich., acquired an unusual bronze rifled breechloader of about 37mm bore size. It was mounted on a swivel yoke and I presumed it was a harpoon gun or something experimental from the 1870s or later.
Ken took it to several shows over the years and came close to selling it once, on the presumption it was a nautical piece. No one could ever identify it.
There was no mistake, the gun on top of the limber chest, was the same model as Ken’s
It did not take long to locate the original ledger for the old State Military Museum and sure enough, there was a long story about this cannon, hand written in the ledger, as follows:
Brass Breach Loading Gun
“Disinterred by Col. Minty’s command on the 25th day of April 1865 from the cemetery in Macon Georgia where the Rebels had buried it on our approach
“They were invented by Captain Travis, who had a great reputation as a pistol shot in “Ante Bellum” days.
“These guns were to have cost $164,000 (Confederate Money or US Greenbacks! Which) and were to have been presented to General N.B. Forrest.
“General Wilson allowed “Minty” to have one of the guns to bring home to Michigan and the others were sent to Washington. 2 are brass and 2 are bronze.
“The following Extract from a letter written by B.C. Truman to the New York Times November 1865 states as follows.
“’At the close of the war Captain Travis was just finishing a battery of guns of his own invention which were built by Subscription and intended for “Forrest.” They were to have been most terrible engines of destruction. At the appearance of Wilson Command they were buried in the Small Pox graveyard. Some Rebel soldier informed our men of the fact and they were immediately disinterred and sent to Washington.
“’Travis, still clinging to some of his old associations named the battery the ‘Stockton Cannon’ in honor of the lamented Commodore Stockton of the United States Navy. The battery consists of two rifled guns and two howitzers made of bronze, thirty six inches long, one inch and a quarter bore and weighing 150 pounds and intended only for Cavalry.
“The carriages are of the same build as the six pounder gun carriages but much lighter. When unlimbered one man can draw it rapidly upon a level field. A Saddle is so arranged that a gun may be fitted to it and placed upon a mule back in case the carriage cannot be got through a swamp or thicket or upon a mountain.
“This gun is a breech loading one and loads something like a Spencer rifle, with ball cartridges which are set off by a musket cap. It has a regular lock on the rear ring breech. At a board of Survey at Mobile a few months before the close of the war, the first gun that was finished made a splendid performance. A target 12 feet by 12 feet at a distance of 1200 yards was hit 15 times in 15 shots, the ball being elongated and weighing 2 pounds.
“The gun is so constructed that it will throw any kind of Missile. It will throw a solid shot two miles with only three ounces of powder and can be loaded 21 times in a minute. It is so arranged that cartridges containing musket balls may be hurled 2 miles at the rate of 20 shots a minute. 1000 musket balls may be projected with the velocity of a Minnie bullet in… (last line is not legible).”
Needless to say, I was amazed at this story. Even though the alleged newspaper story is obviously exaggerated, this was quite a find. A quick check of the pertinent reports in the Official Records of Union and Confederate Armies confirmed the basic capture details and also came up with the Travis-Stockton name.
One report definitely indicates that no carriages were found, which brings up some question about the accuracy of the “newspaper story.” Subsequent efforts by Ken Baumann to locate the original article in print have not found it so far, but the name of the reporter “B.C. Truman” has been seen in late 1865 newspaper bylines.
The Michigan trophy Travis/Stockton gun was in the state armory in the basement of the capitol when the earlier photo was taken. Later it was displayed on the second floor of the capitol in the Grand Army of the Republic exhibit, as documented by a 1906 postcard view showing it mounted on the Mountain Rifle’s limber frame.
According to oral tradition, the GAR exhibit was phased out after the 1920s as the old boys in blue faded away. Both small bronze guns went to Mackinac Island, along with other miscellaneous cannon. Fort Mackinac was a major tourist destination as early as the 1870s when it was still a U.S. Army garrison post.
When the Army turned it over to the state and left, they took all the old cannon with them. The state had to scrape up others to keep up the image of the fort. It is believed that a local blacksmith made a fairly close copy of the Mountain Rifle carriage, for the Travis gun, utilizing the axle of the small limber.
The Michigan specimen of the Travis/Stockton gun was scrapped in 1944. A photo survives of a pile of cannon waiting on the main street of Mackinac Island, for the scrap barge. A very close look, just over the axle of the ill-fated Gatling, faintly shows the open breech of the Travis gun, resting on its small field carriage.
According to a local story, the villagers became indignant at removal of the cannon and officials of the Park Commission who made the decision to scrap the cannon hauled them back to the fort after this photo was taken. Later the gun tubes were sent off from another dock on the unpopulated north side of the island.
The carriages remained until acquired by a Lansing resident about 1960. About a decade later the Mountain Rifle carriage hardware and the modified limber/carriage parts were acquired by Don Lutz of Port Huron, Mich., from an estate.
It seemed logical that one, or both, of these small bronze gun tubes might have escaped destruction in the scrap process and ended up in private possession, so while my oldest daughter was attending college during the late 1990s in Michigan’s “Copper Country” Upper Peninsula, I made many contacts among people connected with the now defunct copper refineries and smelters on the slim hope somebody would know something. No luck
The specimen owned by Ken Baumann is most likely one of the three sent to Washington at the end of the war. It was in the Washington area when he acquired it. So far the only other mention of the three guns sent to Washington is in the catalog of the Ordnance Exhibit, Philadelphia Centennial of 1876.
Several bronze Confederate breechloaders were displayed and “Item No. 50” describes one of them to a perfect match for the dimensions and breech operation of Travis’s guns.
Since it has been identified, Ken has exhibited it a number of times with the above documentation; at the 2001 Maryland Arms Collectors show near Baltimore the Travis Gun took the prestigious “Best of Show” prize.
(About the Author: Matt Switlik is editor of The More Complete Cannoneer and a longtime contributor whose articles include examinations of defective reproduction barrels.)