Tredegar rifled cannon

[USS ALASKA]

From the Charleston Mercury, 9/12/1861

"BIG GUNS. - Some 9 and 11 inch Dahlgren guns have reached this city lately, and part of them may now be seen at the Northeastern Railroad Depot. They are powerful looking weapons, and when placed in battery will, no doubt, be equal to anything that the LINCOLN fleet can bring forth. We noticed by a mark on the guns, that they were manufactured, in 1861, by J. R. ANDERSON, Tredegar Works, Richmond, Virginia, for the Confederate States. One of the guns, about the size of the 9 inch, but much heavier at the muzzle, was rifled and is the very thing to be placed on a steamer, to be used against the blockaders; as we think it quite likely that, with a good projectile, this gun will shoot nearly out of sight. It should be tried with a kind of shot which has been got up by Mr. R. C. SMITH, of our city, and which, we learn, promises to be a complete success. It affords us pleasure to notice that our batteries are to be armed with the heaviest artillery, as any thing less than a 8 inch is getting behind the age for seacoast defence."

What kind of gun is the above statement referring to please?

Thanks for the help,
USS ALASKA

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Most likely a Brooke rifle.

 

[unicornforge]

According to the website https://randolphhistory.wordpress.com/tag/artillery/.............. "Fifty-two 9-inch Dahlgren cannon had been rescued by the Confederates from the burned Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk and brought to Evansport. Dahlgrens, by far the most popular gun in the U.S. Navy, were soda-bottle-shaped, smooth-bore, muzzle-loading naval guns. Commonly designated by caliber using Roman numerals (i.e., "IX"), the most common variety of Dahlgren IX was 108 inches long, weighed more than 9,000 pounds, and could throw an 80-pound solid shot or a 73.5-pound exploding shell".........................

 

[USS ALASKA]

I guess what caught my eye was that the writer stated that they were made by Tredegar in 1861, not from the assortment captured at Gosport - unless they were manufactured right before the start of the ACW and being stored at the Naval Yard.

Could the writer have confused a Dahlgren and a Brooke - or were reporters as proficient at weapons identification then as they are now?

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Bruce Vail]

In Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works there is mention of three IX-inch Dahlgrens that Tredegar shipped to Charleston in April 1861. However, the book says these were surplus stock at Tredegar, having been "made for the United States Navy in the 1850s and never accepted."

 

[USS ALASKA]

So...IX inch rifled Brooke Dahlgrens...humm...... I'm confuse-ed again

Thanks,
USS ALASKA

 

[Bruce Vail]

So...IX inch rifled Brooke Dahlgrens...humm...... I'm confuse-ed again

Thanks,
USS ALASKA

Yeah. me too. Time to call NPS!!

 

[Bruce Vail]

According to the website https://randolphhistory.wordpress.com/tag/artillery/.............. "Fifty-two 9-inch Dahlgren cannon had been rescued by the Confederates from the burned Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk and brought to Evansport. Dahlgrens, by far the most popular gun in the U.S. Navy, were soda-bottle-shaped, smooth-bore, muzzle-loading naval guns. Commonly designated by caliber using Roman numerals (i.e., "IX"), the most common variety of Dahlgren IX was 108 inches long, weighed more than 9,000 pounds, and could throw an 80-pound solid shot or a 73.5-pound exploding shell".........................

View attachment 126459

Nice photo! Is that from Charlestson?

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

So...IX inch rifled Brooke Dahlgrens...humm...... I'm confuse-ed again

Thanks,
USS ALASKA

Possible resolution to the confusion: Brooke took a small number of unbored Dahlgren gun blocks captured at Norfolk and bored them as rifles, prior to producing the classic Brooke rifles per se. (Dahlgrens of XI-inch and below were cast solid and bored out. The XV-inch were cast 'hollow' on the Rodman pattern, sometimes causing them to be referred to, incorrectly, as Rodmans.)

 

[USS ALASKA]

Possible resolution to the confusion: Brooke took a small number of unbored Dahlgren gun blocks captured at Norfolk and bored them as rifles, prior to producing the classic Brooke rifles per se. (Dahlgrens of XI-inch and below were cast solid and bored out. The XV-inch were cast 'hollow' on the Rodman pattern, sometimes causing them to be referred to, incorrectly, as Rodmans.)

Ah that would explain it. Thank you sir.

It does bring up another question though. I would have thought that the manufacture would have shipped completed weapons to the naval facilities. Was it common practice to ship some unbored? Gosport had the time and machinery to complete them?

Thank again for the info!
USS ALASKA

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Hm. Good question that had never occurred to me.

 

[Charlie Robbins]

An interesting article! The main problem is the date, 9 December, 1861 as I interpret it. Now the first six 7 inch single banded Brooke MLRs were bored out from IX inch Dahlgren gun blocks and banded at Tredegar between October and December, 1861 and shipped to Gosport for completion (mating of the gun tubes with their carriages?) between November, 1861 and January, 1862. The first two of these became the fore and aft guns of CSS Virginia. The remaining four were intended to be the fore and aft chase guns of the CSS Mississippi, then building at New Orleans. We know from the testimony of Commander Minor, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, before the Confederate Congress, that three of them were shipped to New Orleans. Of these three, two were diverted to the CSS Louisiana and one was lent to the CSA at Fort Jackson. The fourth gun would be an excellent candidate for the "rifled gun" mentioned in the article, except that I can see no way that it would have been shipped to Charleston before the fall of New Orleans in April, 1862. (Please see John Wallis' article " The Ironclads of Nelson and Asa Tift".) I don't believe that Tredegar completed any other Brooke MLRs in time to be the weapon mentioned in the 9 December, 1861 article. Yet another mystery!

 

[unicornforge]

Ah that would explain it. Thank you sir.
...I would have thought that the manufacture would have shipped completed weapons to the naval facilities......

Perhaps someone will correct me if I am mistaken. If I remember correctly, after a fire that destroyed some buildings and machinery at Tredegar, weren't some naval guns shipped to the Navy's armory for boring and finishing?

 

[rebelatsea]

An interesting article! The main problem is the date, 9 December, 1861 as I interpret it. Now the first six 7 inch single banded Brooke MLRs were bored out from IX inch Dahlgren gun blocks and banded at Tredegar between October and December, 1861 and shipped to Gosport for completion (mating of the gun tubes with their carriages?) between November, 1861 and January, 1862. The first two of these became the fore and aft guns of CSS Virginia. The remaining four were intended to be the fore and aft chase guns of the CSS Mississippi, then building at New Orleans. We know from the testimony of Commander Minor, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, before the Confederate Congress, that three of them were shipped to New Orleans. Of these three, two were diverted to the CSS Louisiana and one was lent to the CSA at Fort Jackson. The fourth gun would be an excellent candidate for the "rifled gun" mentioned in the article, except that I can see no way that it would have been shipped to Charleston before the fall of New Orleans in April, 1862. (Please see John Wallis' article " The Ironclads of Nelson and Asa Tift".) I don't believe that Tredegar completed any other Brooke MLRs in time to be the weapon mentioned in the 9 December, 1861 article. Yet another mystery!

Beat me to it Charlie !

 

[Charlie Robbins]

Perhaps someone will correct me if I am mistaken. If I remember correctly, after a fire that destroyed some buildings and machinery at Tredegar, weren't some naval guns shipped to the Navy's armory for boring and finishing?

I believe that the fire you refer to, which did indeed cause severe damage at Tredegar, occurred on 15 June, 1863, too late to have any connection with the 9 December, 1861 article in the Charleston Mercury. The CSN obtained all of it's Brooke MLRs either from Tredegar or the Naval Ordnance Works at Selma. I do not believe any of these guns were shipped to Selma from Tredegar for finishing. Earlier in the war, the first six single banded 7 inch Brooke MLRs (all bored out from IX Dahlgren gun blocks) were shipped from Tredegar to Gosport for completion. After Gosport was recaptured by the Union in May, 1862 it was no longer available to the CSN.

 

[USS ALASKA]

In 'The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon', the authors state that "The first seven single-banded 7-inch (178 mm) were bored and rifled from 9-inch (229 mm) Dahlgren gun blocks between July and December 1861. Two of these were the front and rear pivot guns of the CSS Virginia."

When I think of a Dahlgren gun, the classic bottle shape comes to mind. Isn't the rear of the gun already reinforced by virtue of the original shape? Why would you need to add an extra reinforcing band unless by changing from a smoothbore to a rifle incurred higher chamber pressures? Or did the Confederates plan on using a higher charge than was initially intended?

Did the Union ever feel the need to band their IX-inch Dahlgren shell guns?

Thanks for the help!
USS ALASKA

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Did the Union ever feel the need to band their IX-inch Dahlgren shell guns?

IIRC, no big Dahlgrens burst in any but proof conditions. So, no.

I'm not 100% sure the Brookes made from Dahlgren blocks would have been banded too-- I would think that the banding came with the "next version" to get the same sort of effect that the Dahlgren shape provided. Banding them on top of that seems like a belt-and-suspenders approach, although I suppose they could have been being extra-careful (?).

 

[rebelatsea]

IIRC, no big Dahlgrens burst in any but proof conditions. So, no.

I'm not 100% sure the Brookes made from Dahlgren blocks would have been banded too-- I would think that the banding came with the "next version" to get the same sort of effect that the Dahlgren shape provided. Banding them on top of that seems like a belt-and-suspenders approach, although I suppose they could have been being extra-careful (?).

Correct Mark, and I 'm sure Charlie Robbins would agree, the gunblocks were not banded ,but bored out to Brooke's rifling pattern.

 

[rebelatsea]

Correct Mark, and I 'm sure Charlie Robbins would agree, the gunblocks were not banded ,but bored out to Brooke's rifling pattern.

Now in 2017, some four years after I wrote that, we know that the gun blocks rifled were to Brooke's pattern and were banded, probably by Captain Archibald Fairfax, who rifled and banded an unknown number of 42pdrs and 32pdrs taken at Gosport.
The missing gun block is by a process of elimination the forward 7 " MLR on CSS Palmetto State. See my paper on the guns of the Charleston Squadron.

 

[drezac]

Ah that would explain it. Thank you sir.

It does bring up another question though. I would have thought that the manufacture would have shipped completed weapons to the naval facilities. Was it common practice to ship some unbored? Gosport had the time and machinery to complete them?

Thank again for the info!
USS ALASKA

The cannon would have been cast with the bore slightly undersized. It would still need final finishing work on the bore to complete the gun. To convert a smooth bore to a rifle did not require boring, but simply cutting the rifling, a much easier process. Most likely rifling would be what was done to the guns.