Cannons with names?

[major bill]

I have seen several Civil War cannons that had names or nick names. How common was it for a unit to give their cannons names? Anyone want to give us a few names of cannons?

 

[UCVRelics]

Swamp Angle, Widow Maker, Whistling Dick which sank the USS Cincinnati just to get the ball rolling.

 

[major bill]

I think I remember some cannons were named for some of the apostles.

 

[Copperhead-mi]

I think I remember some cannons were named for some of the apostles.

The 4 Apostles -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Was a Trivia question on CWT a couple of years back. 6-5- 15 Trivia

 

[lelliott19]

Two guns of the Troup Artillery (commanded by 23 yo Lieut Henry Jennings) defended Crampton's Gap on Sept 14, 1862 - a 12 pound howitzer named Jennie and a model 1841 six-pounder named Sallie Craig. Jennie had to be abandoned along the Gapland Road during the retreat when her axle broke.

Confederate Veteran, Volume 28, page 436.

The Sallie Craig was named in honor of 16 yo Sarah "Sallie" Church Craig. The official naming of the guns took place in Richmond on July 11, 1861.* In June 1861, Lieutenant Pope Barrow wrote a letter to Mary Ann Cobb, wife of Brig Gen Howell Cobb: "You have I suppose seen account of Miss Sallie Craig's defying a whole regiment of Lincoln's troops at Bethlehem [PA]. It appeared in the Charleston Courier when I saw it. There is some talk of naming our new howitzer for her. The names will then be Olivia, Helen, Frank Hill and Sallie Craig.**"

* Athens Southern Banner, January 16, 1861, page 2.
**University of Georgia Hargrett Library, Special Collections, Ms. 1376, Howell Cobb Papers, June 19th 1861 letter of Pope Barrow to Mrs. Howell Cobb.
@Podad @Chattahooch33

 

[AUG]

At the Siege of Spanish Fort in April 1865 the 5th Company, Washington Artillery commanded by Capt. Cuthbert H. Slocomb was equipped with one 8-inch Columbiad, two 12-pound Napoleons, one 3-inch Ordnance Rifle, and four mortars. The 8-inch Columbiad was nicknamed "Lady Slocomb", the two Napoleons were "Lady Vaught" (after Lt. William Vaught's wife) and "Cora Slocomb" (after the captain's daughter), and the 3-inch Ordnance Rifle was "General Gibson" (after Randall H. Gibson). Two of the four Coehorn mortars were named "Theresa" and "Louise" after the peanut- and apple-vending girls at a coffeehouse in Mobile. Lady Slocomb was disabled by counter-battery fire on April 4; she was later recovered after the war and put on display at the Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans.

 

[lelliott19]

Renamed by their Confederate captors, Long Tom and Long Charlie were a pair of thirty pound Parrott guns captured from Rickett's Battery at Manassas. Longstreet wrote to DH Hill at Goldsborough March 15, 1863:

I can spare the Whitworth that I have here as soon as I can get "Long Tom" and "Charlie," as they are called, in my battery at Fort Powhatan. I have established a battery at Fort Powhatan for the purpose of intercepting transports should they attempt to pass up the James River.​

https://books.google.com/books?id=8...spare the Whitworth that I have here"&f=false

 

[major bill]

There are some named cannons but I am not sure it was common to name you cannons,