Angel in My Swamp

kevikens

2nd Lieutenant
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Location
New Jersey
IMG_0051swamp angel breech.JPG swamp angel muzzle.JPG cadwalleder park civil war memorial statue.JPG swamp angel other side.JPG swamp angel side 1.JPG Recently I read that the big eight inch Parrott gun used by the Union to shell Charleston in the summer of 1863 was in, of all places, Trenton, NJ. How that happened seemed to me to have to be an interesting story. As readers know the gun, dubbed the Swamp Angel from its location in a marsh and, perhaps, because the visiting angel of the Hebrews brought death to their Egyptian masters by night, was designed to lob exploding shell or an incendiary charge at long range. It could do that, for a while, but like all Parrotts the weak point was the iron band surrounding the breech and the gun blew out its breech before firing 40 shells. That's pretty well known. The part about winding up in Trenton is not. What happened was that after it blew its breech, it tipped over and was just left there now that it was a fallen angel. After the war a NJ scrap iron dealer brought up whatever junk metal lay about and in the pile that reached his scrap mill in Trenton he noticed the gun, minus its breech and recognized the Parrott for what it was. There were only a handful manufactured and this one, number six was the one sent to Charleston. The separated breech was found near it and he donated it to the city of Trenton which set it up near their NJ Civil war monument. The band surrounding the now blown breech was blasted to smithereens and is missing on the gun. There is no fear that this Civil war monument is ever likely to be removed. Just the tube weighs 16,500 lbs. Besides, although the range is a bit off, the gun is pointed directly at the Tredegar works and nobody in Trenton has any problem with that.

IMG_0051swamp angel breech.JPG


swamp angel muzzle.JPG


cadwalleder park civil war memorial statue.JPG


swamp angel other side.JPG
 
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