Austrian cannons

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Besides Austrian muskets the Confederates also purchased Austrian field pieces. A few of these still exist today. These were the types most commonly imported.

1. The Austrian 3.74 inch smoothbore
2. The Austrian 3.74 inch rifled.
3. The Austrian Field Howitzer 5.87 (or 24 pdr)
 
Two Austrian 24 pdr field howitzers at Gettysburg.

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I can only provide a partial answer to the question. Absent an opportunity to go through the Austrian War Archives in Vienna, the story of Confederate purchases of cannon from the Austro-Hungarian Army (k.k. Army) is incomplete. Then there is the question of what made it through the blockade.

Major Caleb Huse purchased 10 batteries of artillery from the k.k. Army using the good offices of S. Issac Campbell and Company of Great Britain. The TO&E for a k.k. Army battery was eight guns, vice the six guns per battery Huse recalled in his memoirs well after the war. S. Issac Campbell's invoices to Huse reflect that 80 guns were purchased and shipped. Caliber was unspecified. From the record of captures of blockade runners by Federal blockaders, clearly additonal purchases for the Confederates were made by someone. What do we know for certain.

On 3 August 1862 USS Santiago de Cuba captured the side-wheel, steam, blockade runner Columbia off of the coast of Florida during her maiden voyage, probably while on an attempted run into Charleston, South Carolina.
Columbia was transferred to New York, where her cargo was inventoried. The inventory indicated that among her cargo were an eight gun battery of Austrian bronze “6 pdr rifled" cannon and two bronze “12 pdr” Austrian mountain howitzers with carriges. The eight gun battery consisted of the gun tubes, eight double trailed carriges for the guns, eight caissons, one traveling forge, one battery wagon, 80 sets of artillery harness, one box of tools for the forge, 2,355 Austrian artillery shells, and 2,800 metal time fuses for the shells. Two of the captured Austrian cannon from Columbia are on display in the U.S. Navy’s ordnance collection at Leutze Park, the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, DC. One can find photographs and descriptions of them on-line, and I refer you to those.

It appears that Herman Boker and Company bought the artillery from Columbia, less the two guns now on display at the Washington Navy Yard, and probably some additional captured Austrian guns from another blockade runner(s). On 9 August 1864 Boker and Company offered Maryland Governor August W. Bradford two batteries of "smooth bore" Austrian artillery which the firm had on hand for $15,000. One battery consisted of six "6-pounder guns and two howitzers." The second battery consisted of six "12-pounder guns and two howitzers." Accompanying the batteries were 16 ammunition wagons. The guns and equipment had been inspected by Captain Crispin at the Federal ordnance agency in New York, and Boker and Company referred the governor to Chrispin if he had any questions regarding the quality and condition of the guns.

At the end of the war, massive quantities of ordnance and stores were left sitting in St. George's, Bermuda. Much of this was auctioned to settle storage and other claims. Among the materiel sold on 22 November 1865 were 10 brass guns which Russ Pritchard and C. A. Huey believe were the residue of Huse’s Austrian artillery purchase. On 23 December 1865 the steamer Alpha took these guns to Nova Scotia as “old metal.” (Pritchard and Huey (English Connection), pp. 540-1 and 543)

Regards,
Don Dixon
 
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There is a section on Austrian artillery used by the CS in the third volume of "Suppliers to the Confederacy." Unfortunately, it is in draft form meaning a few years away from publication. Interesting topic.
 
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