The Swamp Angel

[Mike Serpa]

• Title: The Swamp Angel Battery from drawing
• Date Created/Published: [photographed between 1861 and 1865, printed between 1880 and 1889]
• Medium: 1 photograph : albumen print on card mount.
• Summary: Photograph of drawing shows soldiers and Parrott cannon named Swamp Angel inside battery designed by Colonel Edward Wellman Serrell of 1st New York Engineers Regiment for Morris Island, South Carolina. A group of soldiers stand outside of the battery.
• Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-35186 (digital file from original item, bottom left)

• Title: "The Swamp Angel" / G.T. Lape, photographer, 146 Chatham St., N.Y.
• Creator(s): Lape, G. T., photographer
• Related Names:
  Serrell, Edward W. (Edward Wellman), 1826-
• Date Created/Published: [between 1861 and 1865]
• Medium: 1 photographic print on carte de visite mount: albumen ; 6.1 x 10.0 (mount)
• Summary: Photograph shows Parrott cannon named Swamp Angel inside battery designed by Edward Wellman Serrell of 1st New York Engineers Regiment for Morris Island, South Carolina.
• Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-35493 (digital file from original item, front) LC-DIG-ppmsca-35494 (digital file from original item, back)

 

[redbob]

Quite the engineering feat, the platform is still out there in the swamp. The gun was a 200# (8" ) Parrott which burst at it's breech area after it's 32nd round with mortars later being emplaced in this position. The gun believed to be the Swamp Angel can be seen today in Cadwallader Park in Trenton, New Jersey.

 

[1SGDan]

The Bill of Materials for the construction of this battery:

13,000 sandbags
123 pieces of 15-18" diameter pine logs (Piling)
5000 feet 1" boards
8 Tarpaulins 18X28 feet
9156 feet of 3" pine planks
300 pounds 4" spikes
300 pounds 7" spikes
600 pounds of assorted iron pieces
75 fathoms of 3" rope