During the days of the United States era of Manifest Destiny, it was the custom of the conquering powers to take trophy guns from the forts they captured and to send them back to the military schools and capitals such as Rome sent slaves back to Rome after a successful battle.
After the Conquest of California and Mexico, many cannon were taken on both coasts of Mexico, dubbed “trophies,” and sent to the East Coast New York Navy Yard on returning ships. This study has to do with those cannon marked “taken in California in 1847” and located at the U.S. Naval Academy
We know what is in the Naval Academy collection because they have a list of the guns, but we do not know how they got there and where they came from.
During the Conquest of California from 1846 to 1847 the United States had a squadron of ships on the west coast of California and Mexico. These roamed from northern California to Baja California and to the west coast of the Mexican mainland. These included the USS Dale, USS Lexington, USS Portsmouth, USS Independence, USS Congress, USS Cyane, USS Erie and USS Warren, and smaller stores ships.
Besides the northern Californian ports, this squadron sent troops to occupy San Jose Del Cabo, San Lucas, Loreto, Muleje in Baja California and Guaymas, Mazatlan, Puerto Nuevo, Urias and San Blas on the Mexican mainland.
Large naval forces in the hundreds were landed and overwhelmed the Mexican defenses. Cannon were taken at various places, but which were trophies or which were kept at all is not known. The USS Lexington did take out several cannon from the fort in front of San Blas and cannon were taken at Loreto.
In northern California, the record of cannon in stock at the four Mexican military facilities was not well kept. However, a translation of a Mexican military account for 1830 indicated that there were 54 pieces of artillery - 23 of them were bronze, three were of 24 caliber and most others were of 8 caliber or smaller. San Francisco had the largest caliber.
Caliber had to do with the weight of the ball fired by the cannon. Twenty-four caliber was a 24-pound ball. This custom of sizing cannon was quite arbitrary. Most cannon were eyeballed as to size, with little or no effort to actually measure the bore with a ruler; consequently there were variations in the actual size of a 24-pdr., caliber, or 12-caliber or pounder as recorded in the records. Pounder and caliber were used interchangeably so trying to identify cannon for comparison is quite difficult or impossible.
To complicate things even further, when the Americans landed to conquer and hold northern California, they took cannon from all sources in California and brought several on shore from their ships to build forts: San Diego, Fort Stockton; Los Angeles, Fort Moore; Monterey, Fort Mervin; and at San Francisco, Fort Montgomery.
When the conquest was completed and the treaty of Cahuenga was signed in Los Angeles, followed by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with Mexico, the American forces left California and the forts they had built behind without record or caretakers.
When the Benicia arsenal was established in August 1851, the captain in charge found that “heavy guns lay in many places along the coast from San Francisco to San Diego, encrusted with rust and caked earth. There were also old Spanish trophy brass 8-pounders abandoned to the elements at Clark's Point, San Francisco [Fort Montgomery].”
Just what happened to these cannon in the aftermath of the inspections of the forts is unknown. Later photographs of Benicia Arsenal show many cannon lying in rows on the ground at the arsenal.
During and after the conquest, the USS Lexington stayed on the coast of California to assist with movement of troops and supplies. The writer has located two records of the Lexington receiving cannon.
A copy of the log of the Lexington for Nov. 20, 1848, was obtained from the National Archives' Old Military and Civil Records Branch. Actually this was a roll of 35mm film that required many hours of scanning to locate the interesting piece of data about the shipment of cannon. The key statement in the logbook listed seven guns obtained from the U.S. barque Anita. The cannon were listed by their size in ball size (pounder), and date and names were listed. These data are summarized in the accompanying table.
A second source was located with similar difficulty in “Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Captains ['captains’ letters'], 1805-61,” also obtained from the National Archives. This source listed 10 Spanish bronze cannon received by the Lexington in November 1849 from the Army Ordnance Sergeant Theodore Heatherton. The cannon are listed next to those in the first table.
It would seem that only bronze cannon were considered for trophies. Seventeen cannon are listed in these two records.
Information from the National Archives is difficult to obtain at best. The key is to be very specific in your requests. Otherwise the response is “come and do it yourself.“
The Lexington returned to the East Coast in 1850 and may have deposited her cargo of cannon at the New York Navy Yard then. The Lexington then joined Commodore Matthew C. Perry on his famous trip to Japan.
The trophy cannon from California were eventually shipped to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The Academy had been established in 1845 at the site of Fort Severn. The midshipmen funded the Mexican War Monument there in 1848. During the Civil War the Academy was moved to Rhode Island and the cannon were shipped to the New York Naval Yard for safekeeping.
The California trophy guns were returned to the Academy in 1877. When these pieces were returned, the list with them merely stated “California 1847” after each item. A record of just where they came from was not included.
The Naval Academy Museum has a list of the 16 California trophy guns in its possession. These are listed in USNA cat. no.*77.1 weapons:ordnance. These are summarized in the attached table. There may be other California trophy guns out there somewhere but this is the only known record. The “old woman cannon” is in the Annapolis museum and the “San Bruno” is at the Washington Navy Yard. The other cannon listed are located about the grounds of the Naval Academy which the author has visited and photographed.
Is there any connection between the cannon shipped on the Lexington and the California cannon? Yes. Four cannon bear the same names and two have the same names and dates as those at Annapolis.
Are there any similarities to Spanish bronze cannon in California today? Yes. The sizes and dates of many of the cannon are very similar to the six Spanish bronze cannon in San Francisco. These six are listed in a table that follows the 16 Academy cannon for comparison.
There is only one bronze gun in San Diego from the Spanish period. It is dated 1789, named “El Jupiter” and is 6 feet 7-1/2 inches long and has a bore diameter of 3-1/2 inches. It could be a 12-pdr. or an 8-pdr.
Can one say for sure that there is a match? No. But the size, place of manufacture, dates and names seem to be very similar. The six California cannon are 12 pdrs. just like the 12 pdrs. in the academy list. All seem to have been cast in Lima, Peru, in the late 1600s.
The Academy list of trophy guns does not correspond to the two shipments of guns on the Lexington on the basis of the pounder size. The academy list of California guns shows a wide variation in the bore diameters for the same pounder of gun. One 12 pdr. is 3-3/4 inches while another is 4-1/2 inches.
What can be concluded from this study? Some of the guns came from the shipment of guns on the Lexington in 1848 and some of the guns are similar to the six guns at San Francisco and the one gun at San Diego. Sixteen guns are in the academy collection and 17 guns were shipped on the Lexington.
In 1830 there were 23 bronze guns in California's castillos and presidios. There are seven left today. Seventeen were shipped to the East as trophies. The numbers are close and could also help to support a conclusion that all the academy cannon are from California.
The oldest cannon in California is “Domingo,” cast at Lima in 1628. It may be the oldest bronze cannon in the United States.
Bronze was used in many cannon before the rise of the cheaper iron cannon. In 1936, Douglas Watson reported in an article entitled “San Francisco's ancient cannon” that an analysis of a bronze piece cast in 1673 revealed the following elements: copper, 90 percent; tin, 5 percent; lead, 1 percent; iron, .5 percent; magnesium, .2 percent; zinc, less than .1 percent; and silver .1percent. Peru was a big source for all of these materials.
About the Author: Justin Ruhge is a longtime contributor of articles about artillery in California.