Cannon

[JoeHea]

I'm looking for more info on the prairie ammunition cart for the 12-pdr mountain howitzer.

I have found reference to it in The Artillerist's Manual by Gibbon thru Google, but the plates that might have drawings of it are not scanned properly and are unreadable.
There is reference to it in some of the Ordinance manuals but even more brief.
I did purchase the Antique Ordinance Publishers set of plans. They are not well done, however. Missing key measurements necessary for understanding construction.

My goal is to produce a complete set of plans and model the cart in scale and computer graphics. My son has even offered to 3d print parts for me, aiding in the scale model production.

Any help in pointing me to a source of information or a source for the plates from The Artillerist's Manual would be appreciated.

 

[Rhea Cole]

This is going to sound like a joke, but it is not.

"Hunting Wisconsin White Tail Deer With A 12 Pound Mountain Howitzer." As preposterous as it may seem, was posted along with the building the howitzer from scratch. That included turning the barrel. He was very helpful to an acquaintance who built a mountain howitzer using his plans.

My assumption would be that he would be aware of the data you seek if anybody would.

Try looking at the copy of the manual at <archive.org>

As far as I know, the reprints across the board are of poor quality. The one I have certainly is.

I copied all the pages that pertained to the 1841 model 6 pounders we shoot at Stones River & other pages from this source. I keep a spiral bound copy in my haversack. The image quality was excellent.


Good hunting!

 

[Sowbelly and Hardtack]

 

[drezac]

This is a cut and past of a reply I made to a different post, but the reply is the same.

You might try the plates from "Artillery for the United States Land Service"

It's available from the Library of Congress. It's huge and a little hard to search. I would suggest also using a copy of the book ( there were 2 parts, part 2 had all the plates) The book can easily be found in google books. you can use the book to find out what plate you need. The link for the plate book in the LOC is
Artillery for the United States Land Service Part 2
Google Books
Artillery for the United States Land Service part 1

I would start with part V Guns and Carriages for Mountain Artillery

 

[JoeHea]

Just found this about an hour ago. I'll post what I've been working on after the weekend.

 

[JoeHea]

These are the references I have been able to find for the prairie carriage and ammunition cart.

 

[limberbox]

Great stuff you've posted Drezac and JoeHea. Mordecai's Artillery for the United States Land Service was published in 1849 and written even earlier -- too early for the need for a system of vehicles more suited to operation in non-mountainous terrain to have been realized and acted upon. Accordingly, I believe it only covers the original mountain carriage and pack saddle arrangement. Gibbon, publishing in 1861, was able to update his work to discuss the prairie carriage (developed in the 1850's IIRC) and two-wheeled ammunition cart.

Back in the mid-1990's one of the impressions the Dallas Light Artillery did was of Battery K, 1st Illinois Light Artillery (the battery that accompanied Grierson on his 1863 raid through Mississippi). While we didn't have a mountain howitzer we had a reproduction Woodruff Gun (one of the types of guns used by Battery K in addition to mountain howitzers) that we used with a prairie caisson, which was a later improvement over the two-wheeled prairie ammunition cart described by Gibbon, being essentially a scaled down no. 1 caisson (limber & caisson body) but mounting standard Mt. Howitzer chests rather than scaled down field artillery chests. Far more carrying capacity than a two-wheeled cart. Our captain was a retired LTC of Artillery and through his connections at the Ft Sill Museum library he was able to obtain copies of original plans/drawings of the prairie caisson. Our other principal leader owned a steel foundry/fabrication business which enabled the group to build one (I helped paint!). We used it in a number of multi-day, campaign-style events covering tens of miles including the Ft Towsend "Last Surrender" Campaign (Stand Watie's June 1865 surrender) event in Oklahoma in 1995. I know I have pictures of the prairie caisson and will look around to see if I have any of the plans. I also have large-size reproduction copies somewhere of a couple of the Artillery for the United States Land Service plate volumes but my memory is that they only show the mountain carriage, not the prairie carriage and I doubt they have the cart either, but will take a look if I can find them. I have quite a bit of research on Mt. Howitzers compiled in the mid-1990s.

 

[JoeHea]

It would be great to see any of the drawings you might have. I reached the same conclusion about the original Mordecai's Artillery for the United States Land Service drawings, only the mountain howitzer is addressed.

The video Sowbelly and Hardtack mentioned earlier has a photo of a prairie carriage ammunition cart as a cassion being drawn by a limber set up to carry ammunition chests in the same manner as the cassion. That photo is available on the library of congress site. I'll find the link and post it here.

 

[JoeHea]

Library of Congress link.

Google Image Result for https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/71000/71068v.jpg

 

[limberbox]

That is a very good picture you found JoeHea. It looks like in that instance two carts were used, the first doubling also as a limber and likely having a pintle hook on its rear (unseen from this angle), the second serving as a caisson body and likely having a stock with a lunette to go over the pintle (also unseen from this angle). That is how ours was constructed. I've looked in my files and found a few poor photos taken "on campaign" but have not found drawings of the prairie caisson. However, I did find this transcription of a September 1862 letter from James Ripley, Chief of Ordnance, to W.A. Thornton, who commanded Watervliet Arsenal in West Troy, NY, where prairie carriages, limbers, carts (and perhaps caissons later in the war) were made, asking Thornton to prepare drawings of the limbers and carts:

"Maj. W.A. Thornton Ordnance Office
U.S. Arsenal, West Troy N.Y. Sir: Washington Sept. 22, 1862
I have to acknowledge your letter of the 25th ult. and presume you have before this received the roll of Photographs and drawings of guns and carriages sent to you some days Since, which included these you ask for. No drawing of the Prairie Cart and Limber has ever been furnished to this office. All the carts that have been made were prepared at the Watervliet Arsenal and it is believed that data exists at the post by which to make them. It is very desirable that suitable drawings should be made, which please have done when convenient, and send a copy to this office.


NARA R.G. 156, Entry 6, vol. 22, p.597

Besides the Ft. Sill Museum

 

[limberbox]

Somehow that posted prematurely. Below in quotes is the full transcription followed by some thoughts on where plans might possibly be found:


"Ordnance Office
Washington Sept. 22, 1862

Maj. W.A. Thornton
U.S. Arsenal, West Troy N.Y.

Sir:
I have to acknowledge your letter of the 25th ult. and presume you have before this received the roll of Photographs and drawings of guns and carriages sent to you some days Since, which included these you ask for. No drawing of the Prairie Cart and Limber has ever been furnished to this office. All the carts that have been made were prepared at the Watervliet Arsenal and it is believed that data exists at the post by which to make them. It is very desirable that suitable drawings should be made, which please have done when convenient, and send a copy to this office.
Respectfully &c.
Jas. W. Ripley Br. Gen. Chief Ord."

NARA R.G. 156, Entry 6, vol. 22, p.597

Besides the Ft. Sill Museum & Library, drawings also might possibly be found at NARA's main D.C. location and/or its New York location. Records Group 156 is the records of the office of the Chief of Ordnance and most of those records are at Main Archives/Archives 1 in downtown Washington, D.C. Plans/drawings sent to the Chief could possibly be there. Another place to look would be the repositories of individual arsenals that manufactured the vehicles, such as Watervliet (other locations did too but Watervliet seems to have been a primary location for artillery carriages, etc.). Records of the individual arsenals, to the extent the records still exist, are often at satellite locations. According to an online index I found, subdivision 156.10 is "Records of Arsenals and Armories" and Subgroup 156.10.28 within that is "Records of Watervliet Arsenal, NY" and consists of textual records located in New York. It is said to contain, among other things "Technical memorandums, and sketches relating to ordnance and ordnance equipment manufacture, 1846-81."

So, you just might get lucky.

 

[JoeHea]

Would anyone have a diagram/drawing for a no.3 wheel. The one in the antique ordnance publishers no.70 publication gives only the diameter of the wheel. I'm looking for the spoke details, length, width. Tenon lengths and thickness/diameter.

 

[Dragooncaptain]

Watervliet was the principle arsenal for most Mountain and Prairie Artillery manufacturing and was constantly innovating with new items. The carriage and limber that was illuminated in the 1850 approved and 1851 published Mountain Artillery Tactics wasn't the first travelling carriage (having a limber) designed for the mountain howitzer but was the first travelling carriage to actually be called a prairie carriage. Shortly after its introduction a limber and caisson was designed for it at Watervliet but in use, in the 1852-4 timeframe it failed to meet expectations and was scrapped. When the new prairie carriage and limber was introduced in 1855 the prairie cart was added to the system to carry the tools and four additional chests. The cart was manufactured at Watervliet starting i the 1850s and produced well into the 1860s. The Ordnance Corps received multiple requests for a caisson and experiments were made. The image above of the 5th Ohio's caisson is an example of these wartime expedient models. In 1863 the Ordnance Board was queried about developing a Prairie Caisson but tabled the discussion for the next board meeting. The Board established in December of 1867 took up the discussion. The Fort Sill model of the Caisson and the Antique Ordnance research Packet come from that 1868 recommendations of the Board (23JUL 1868). "Prairie Caissons. The board recommend that the prairie ammunition cart, described on page 56, Ordnance Manual, be abolished, and that the prairie caisson as now made at the Watervliet Arsenal be adopted for use with the prairie carriage, and that tables of dimensions and nomenclature be prepared and submitted at the next meeting of the Board." Two officers supporting the board had gone to Watervliet and looked into a new caisson and simply cut the shafts off the cart, added a pintle pole and attached it to a limber.