24 pounder seige gun memorial Vicksburg NMP

1stMS-Arty

Sergeant
Joined
Jun 9, 2013
This gun was placed in the National Cemetery April 13th, 1874. It originally had a shell placed on top of the tube but it lost that at some point after being placed.
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The eagle on the iron tube is acually engraved into the metal which you can't really see unless you are up close. I had seen the gun numerous times before as it is placed on the main tourist road in the cemetery.

Recently I stopped and got out of the car and took some close up photos.

24a.JPG


24b.JPG


24c.JPG
 
@1stMS-Arty, if I've asked this before please forgive me.

For many years, there has been a very large gun positioned behind the Mississippi Monument at VNMP.
Almost invisaible from the road.
(I assume it's still in place )

Do you have any info about that gun ?
You may be sorry you asked that question.....the short answer is yes I do.
It is the only surviving Confederate copy of the 9 inch Dahlgren design of shell guns. It was produced at the Bellona Foundry in Virginia...(which also produced the 9 inch Dahlgren before the war).
9inch08.JPG


The last time I was there the gun was laying on the ground behind the Mississippi Monument presumably to be placed on one of the new siege carriages...I quess.

The long answer is that it is also one of four 9 inch Dahlgren pattern guns in the park. There is also a 9 inch Dahlgren located at Washington and Cherry Streets in downtown Vicksburg making a total of five 9 inch Dahlgrens in the Vicksburg area.....that's a whole lot of Dahlgrens.

There is speculation about the origins downtown gun ......which should probably be a whole other thread.

I personally believe that the gun behind the Mississippi Monument may be an original gun to the Confederate artillery during the war there.

Here is a picture of the Mississippi Monument around the time it was built and you can see a gun in the picture....it looks like the gun that is still there....

9inch01.JPG

9inch02.JPG


I flipped my picture to show comparison of the two....
9inch08c.JPG


The Confederate version of the 9 incher didn't have a flare at the end of the muzzle or any of the other bumps and appendages that the Federal version has.

According to Col. Higgins who commanded the Confederate artillery during the siege they had a 9 inch shell gun in the inventory and this may very well be that gun.
 
The 24-pdr is West Point #90, 1827. The 9-inch was cast at Bellona in 1862.
May I suggest "A Field Guide to the Artillery of the Vicksburg National Military Park" by Elizabeth Hoxie Joyner as a great addition to any library. It has descriptions and color photos of all the guns at Vicksburg.
Yep I got a copy.
 
It was placed there apparently because that is where the gun was located during the siege.
That was the only reason I could think of myself.

Thanks again !

But semi hiding such a magnificent original weapon from the siege makes no sense.
However, I'm retired from the "gub'ment", so I know first hand many executive decisions are not related to common sense.
That's nothing about the fantastic staff at VNMP !

That gun should have been in front of the Mississippi monument for the last thirty plus years.

It's sad to see the tube on the ground, but I hope it's still scheduled for one of the new siege carriages.
 
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This gun was placed in the National Cemetery April 13th, 1874. It originally had a shell placed on top of the tube but it lost that at some point after being placed.
View attachment 353248

View attachment 353249

The eagle on the iron tube is acually engraved into the metal which you can't really see unless you are up close. I had seen the gun numerous times before as it is placed on the main tourist road in the cemetery.

Recently I stopped and got out of the car and took some close up photos.

View attachment 353250

View attachment 353251

View attachment 353252
Thanks for the photos. As many a thief has discovered over the decades, the National Park Service uses cement, not iron cannon balls on monuments. I am sure there are still some iron balls somewhere, but the cast concrete balls predominate these days.
 
You may be sorry you asked that question.....the short answer is yes I do.
It is the only surviving Confederate copy of the 9 inch Dahlgren design of shell guns. It was produced at the Bellona Foundry in Virginia...(which also produced the 9 inch Dahlgren before the war).
View attachment 353281

The last time I was there the gun was laying on the ground behind the Mississippi Monument presumably to be placed on one of the new siege carriages...I quess.

The long answer is that it is also one of four 9 inch Dahlgren pattern guns in the park. There is also a 9 inch Dahlgren located at Washington and Cherry Streets in downtown Vicksburg making a total of five 9 inch Dahlgrens in the Vicksburg area.....that's a whole lot of Dahlgrens.

There is speculation about the origins downtown gun ......which should probably be a whole other thread.

I personally believe that the gun behind the Mississippi Monument may be an original gun to the Confederate artillery during the war there.

Here is a picture of the Mississippi Monument around the time it was built and you can see a gun in the picture....it looks like the gun that is still there....

View attachment 353282
View attachment 353283

I flipped my picture to show comparison of the two....
View attachment 353284

The Confederate version of the 9 incher didn't have a flare at the end of the muzzle or any of the other bumps and appendages that the Federal version has.

According to Col. Higgins who commanded the Confederate artillery during the siege they had a 9 inch shell gun in the inventory and this may very well be that gun.
Was the gun downtown the one that was supposedly buried and recovered?
 
Thanks for the photos. As many a thief has discovered over the decades, the National Park Service uses cement, not iron cannon balls on monuments. I am sure there are still some iron balls somewhere, but the cast concrete balls predominate these days.
At one time, there was two Whitworth Guns placed along Lee's Seminary Line (where they were never located) and beside each one was a stack of genuine Whitworth shells. I've got to wonder how many of those "walked off".
 
At one time, there was two Whitworth Guns placed along Lee's Seminary Line (where they were never located) and beside each one was a stack of genuine Whitworth shells. I've got to wonder how many of those "walked off".
I have heard more National Park bureaucratic blah-blah than most non-matrix folks ever have to suffer through. Believe it or not, things like the Whitworth rounds disappearing could just be something that maintenance crews did when they got tired of repainting them. They could all be in a hole in the ground somewhere. An example is the family cemetery atop Snodgrass Hill at Chickamauga. The lawn mowers got tired of futzing with what they thought was a n----er graveyard & bulldozed it. You should see the stuff that is stacked behind the maintenance buildings at some battlefields. Just plain old boneheaded human nature is often the answer to the 'What happened to that?' question. Welcome to life on what we call 'our side of the rope.'
 
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I have heard more National Park bureaucratic blah-blah than most non-matrix folks ever have to suffer through. Believe it or not, things like the Whitworth rounds disappearing could just be something that maintenance crews did when they got tired of repainting them. They could all be in a hole in the ground somewhere. An example is the family cemetery atop Snodgrass Hill at Chickamauga. The lawn mowers got tired of futzing with what they thought was a n----er graveyard & bulldozed it. You should see the stuff that is stacked behind the maintenance buildings at some battlefields. Just plain old boneheaded human nature is often the answer to the 'What happened to that?' question. Welcome to life on what we call 'our side of the rope.'
At over 1K apiece, that would be a very valuable hole.
 
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The number of unknown listed is crazy. Anyone know why there's that many? I haven't been to many ACW cemeteries so perhaps that's normal.
One of the reasons I have heard over the years is that the people that went out over the countryside looking for remains would bring back wagon loads of bones that had no way to be related to individuals and many of the graves probably contain one or two bones.....so there really was no way to tell even if the bones were even actually from a Union soldier or even from the same person.
 
Was the gun downtown the one that was supposedly buried and recovered?
This is the gun or one of them that was buried and it appears to be a Columbiad and the downtown gun is a Dahlgren.
buried-gun.JPG

The downtown gun is somewhat of a mystery to me. It has no markings visible where you would expect to find markings and it has all the correct features for a Federal naval gun. It used to have a sign on it stating it was a Confederate naval gun which makes no sense to me. There also used to be a small sign in the window of the old pharmacy across the street stating it was one of two 9 inch Dahlgrens removed from the ironclad Tuscumbia and placed in the Union lines. Then for awhile it had no sign on it at all and now it has a sign on it stating that it has been donated to the Old Courthouse Museum.

There are three other 9 inch Dahlgrens in the park besides the Confederate gun at the Mississippi Monument. One is another memorial tube in the National Cemetery, one is outside at the Visitor's Centery and another one is located in the Union lines down the old Jackson Rd. in the location of Battery McPherson......

oh my gosh I just found this at Boston College digital collections...its a scetch of Battery McPherson with the two naval Dahlgrens....

https://library.bc.edu/iiif/view/becker_4774

mcpherson.JPG
 
Thanks for the photos. As many a thief has discovered over the decades, the National Park Service uses cement, not iron cannon balls on monuments. I am sure there are still some iron balls somewhere, but the cast concrete balls predominate these days.
The National Cemetery predates the park by several years so it's possible that was an actual shell originally on top of the tube....it's also possible it was removed because it might have been a live shell....................
 
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