Very Interesting photo of a cannon

Rusk County Avengers

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Muster Stunt Master Stones River / Franklin 2022
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Location
Coffeeville, TX
I was scrolling on FB yesterday and spotted a picture labeled only "Pilot Mountain, NC 1864" which had a cannon. Nothing special, except I noticed the tube itself besides being iron looked to be a much older pattern mounted on standard CW era field carriage.

1615669679766.png


Is it me, or is this an older English gun? I know the old "To the Sound of Guns" blog made mention of older English gun in the Confederate Defenses of Charleston, SC, and I think one picture from Virginia of what looked like an older gun, so I reckon it ain't out of the realm of possibility.

Thoughts?
 
Looks more 6 pounder to me? I seem to remember that on the old Sounds of the Guns blog a similar gun, probably of militia heritage, appeared in Confederate hands. In fact as I recall there were several examples like that. I’d say it was cast sometime in the 1830s based on style. It’s an iron gun, of a pre-1848 pattern and probably US cast, imho.

edit: It appears similar to the gun in the LOC photo at Belle Isle & the guns recovered from the river at Fort Branch, NC. Tentatively attributed to Columbia Foundry ca 1820, and if I had to guess made for North Carolina’s Militia, hence their occurrence there.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2018666757/
 
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Looks more 6 pounder to me? I seem to remember that on the old Sounds of the Guns blog a similar gun, probably of militia heritage, appeared in Confederate hands. In fact as I recall there were several examples like that. I’d say it was cast sometime in the 1830s based on style. It’s an iron gun, of a pre-1848 pattern and probably US cast, imho.

edit: It appears similar to the gun in the LOC photo at Belle Isle & the guns recovered from the river at Fort Branch, NC. Tentatively attributed to Columbia Foundry ca 1820, and if I had to guess made for North Carolina’s Militia, hence their occurrence there.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2018666757/

I think your referring to this?

https://web.archive.org/web/2015101...ordpress.com/2012/08/08/cs-militia-iron-6pdr/

Also you've come closest to noticing the previously unmentioned grand prize of best eye for period photos.
 
Those are 2 rock formation outcroppings and the gun is an early 12lb import.

Interesting photo, with a lesson about Confederate ordnance! At first I thought that was a grove of trees also, but now I realize that is actually Pilot Mountain. It's not far from Winston-Salem, NC, and we used to stay at a hotel there that had a framed photo of this mountain in every room.

1280px-Pilot_mountain.jpg


(Credit: nick d, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)

Roy B.
 
What do y'all think of the actual position? Or is it just a picture of the gun and not an actual defensive position?

Here is an interesting comment about this image from a NC state librarian at NCPedia:

>>Pilot Mountain does have two pinnacles, Big Pinnacle and Little Pinnacle. It is possible that the Little Pinnacle was more visible in the mid-19th century than it is today. But it remains unclear if this is a legitimate image. A few viewers have speculated that the image is a hoax and may have been "photo-shopped" as we don't have any information about its origins or why a cannon is located in the foreground, given that no Civil War battles were fought at the mountain (although Stoneman's troops did march through the general area on their way north to Virginia).<<

Roy B.
 
Interesting... that’s a new wrinkle for sure. My observation: I think I can just make out the canopy of a covered wagon in the distance, which suggests that there is a road going over/around Pilot Mountain. The cannon would be placed so as to cover the road, probably as a defensive position. The other photo of Belle Isle prison camp, and the extent examples of these guns in NC, seem to have been used in defensive positions behind the lines, a useage that makes sense given that the guns would have been pretty old & obsolete at the time even by Confederate standards. If they were originally owned by the North Carolina militia then they may have largely stayed in local units hands.

Or... it could be that the Belle Isle photo, which seems to have been well known and copied in lithographs of the period, was selected as the basis for a Civil War photoshop job!

Edit: Took a look at some of the distinctive features of the gun, and I think it might be the same gun only reversed and then pasted over one or more images. The original gun at Belle Isle has cap squares that almost but don’t quite fit the guns trunnions, the sponge bucket is in the same position, and most dammingly the shadows are exactly the same which wouldn’t have happened with the way that the photo is lit. No wonder I recognized the gun right away! I think we’ve cracked the case.
 
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Or... it could be that the Belle Isle photo, which seems to have been well known and copied in lithographs of the period, was selected as the basis for a Civil War photoshop job!

I think you're right. I believe even the ground that the gun is sitting on has been pasted into the Pilot Mountain scene from the Belle Isle photo.

Roy B.
 
Interesting photo, with a lesson about Confederate ordnance! At first I thought that was a grove of trees also, but now I realize that is actually Pilot Mountain. It's not far from Winston-Salem, NC, and we used to stay at a hotel there that had a framed photo of this mountain in every room.

View attachment 394476

(Credit: nick d, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)

Roy B.
Excellent find for a photo. There are some good sport (and a few trad) climbing routes on the quartzite faces that flank the peak, but not on the knob itself in the photo - for conservation purposes, IIRC.
 
Here is an interesting comment about this image from a NC state librarian at NCPedia:

>>Pilot Mountain does have two pinnacles, Big Pinnacle and Little Pinnacle. It is possible that the Little Pinnacle was more visible in the mid-19th century than it is today. But it remains unclear if this is a legitimate image. A few viewers have speculated that the image is a hoax and may have been "photo-shopped" as we don't have any information about its origins or why a cannon is located in the foreground, given that no Civil War battles were fought at the mountain (although Stoneman's troops did march through the general area on their way north to Virginia).<<

Roy B.
Interesting... that’s a new wrinkle for sure. My observation: I think I can just make out the canopy of a covered wagon in the distance, which suggests that there is a road going over/around Pilot Mountain. The cannon would be placed so as to cover the road, probably as a defensive position. The other photo of Belle Isle prison camp, and the extent examples of these guns in NC, seem to have been used in defensive positions behind the lines, a useage that makes sense given that the guns would have been pretty old & obsolete at the time even by Confederate standards. If they were originally owned by the North Carolina militia then they may have largely stayed in local units hands.

Or... it could be that the Belle Isle photo, which seems to have been well known and copied in lithographs of the period, was selected as the basis for a Civil War photoshop job!

Edit: Took a look at some of the distinctive features of the gun, and I think it might be the same gun only reversed and then pasted over one or more images. The original gun at Belle Isle has cap squares that almost but don’t quite fit the guns trunnions, the sponge bucket is in the same position, and most dammingly the shadows are exactly the same which wouldn’t have happened with the way that the photo is lit. No wonder I recognized the gun right away! I think we’ve cracked the case.

Congratulations! Y'all win as most observant in the thread!

First time I saw this picture I was fooled, but not the second time. I posted it here and played along to see what would happen!

I was curious if anyone would closely and notice. Also to see how many would get fooled.

Call it an early April Fools, I halfway thought it might go on till then and I'd spill the beans.
 
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