12-pounder Confederate Napoleon Gun - Gettysburg, PA
N 39° 50.836 W 077° 14.544
18S E 308154 N 4413211
A 12-pounder Confederate Napoleon produced by Macon Arsenal represents the Page’s Morris Artillery detachment here on Oak Hill at the Gettysburg National Military Park.
Waymark Code: WMBVRF
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 06/24/2011
Views: 2
The cannon, green with age but in tip-top condition accompanies a Confederate States monument/marker. This This Civil War tablet marks the position of Page's Morris Artillery CS Battery on July 1-4, 1863 & narrates the events associated w/ Battery during Battle of Gettysburg. It's located on Oak Hill, S.E. of the Peace Memorial, on N. Confederate Avenue.
Many of these iron/bronze tablets reveal the type of artillery used by various battalions and brigades. The park has included representations of these weapons, often times flanking the markers. This cannon has is pristine; the breech, muzzle, carriage, wheels and all the other parts I do not know are in pretty darn good shape.
The following comes from WIkipedia SOURCE
The twelve-pound cannon "Napoleon" was the most popular smoothbore cannon used during the war. It was named after Napoleon III of France and was widely admired because of its safety, reliability, and killing power, especially at close range. In Union Ordnance manuals it was referred to as the "light 12-pounder gun" to distinguish it from the heavier and longer 12 pounder gun (which was virtually unused in field service.) It did not reach America until 1857. It was the last cast bronze gun used by an American army. The Federal version of the Napoleon can be recognized by the flared front end of the barrel, called the muzzle-swell.
Confederate Napoleons were produced in at least six variations, most of which had straight muzzles, but at least eight catalogued survivors of 133 identified have muzzle swells. Additionally, four iron Confederate Napoleons produced by Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond have been identified, of an estimated 125 cast. In early 1863 Robert E. Lee sent nearly all of the Army of Northern Virginia's bronze 6-pounder guns to Tredegar to be melted down and recast as Napoleons. Copper for casting bronze pieces became increasingly scarce to the Confederacy throughout the war and became acute in November 1863 when the Ducktown copper mines near Chattanooga were lost to Union forces. Casting of bronze Napoleons by the Confederacy ceased and in January of 1864 Tredegar began producing iron Napoleons.