There are only 6 examples of these types of guns & model year @ Gettysburg. The entire carriage and its wheels look brand new, probably as a result of its recent maintenance within the last three or four years. The bronze firing tube has a green patina from constant exposure to the elements. To all appearances, this weapon closely resembles the 12-pounder Confederate bronze Napoleon. I noticed a band about the muzzle which is unique. The 12-pdr field howitzer was manufactured from the Federal 1841 pattern in 1862.
The cannon is located on the right or west side of W. Confederate Avenue if traveling south, opposite the Virginia Monument. The weapon points to the east, in the direction of the Federal lines which once massed across the field. Parking is available at small, intermittent cutouts or small shoulders, especially here due to the Virginia monument. Please do not park on the grass, park on the asphalt. I cannot emphasize that enough! You will be ticketed. I visited this monument on Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 2:11 PM, just before the clocks were set ahead for the Spring. I was at a 592 foot ASL elevation.
When I visited this cannon I was disappointed to see the lack of information in the muzzle but then I remembered to examine the trunnions. The trunnions are the doodads which attach the cannon to the carriage so it does not fall out when the cannon fires its projectile. I looked up this information on my usual SOURCE for all things weaponry at Gettysburg provided the rest of the limited. information. The left trunnion has the manufacturer year, 1841. The right trunnion has the foundry name, N.P. Ames Founder Springfield Mass. With this information and with the knowledge this gun is part of the Poague's Howitzers Tablet site, I narrowed this weapon down to only one which has all this information. I used my usual SITE for things weaponry related at Gettysburg to get the rest of the information related to the gun and was rewarded with the following registry information: Ames - Reg #3 - INSP WM - YR 41 - WT 783.
Ames is of course the foundry or vendor which produced the cannon for the Confederacy, namely the N.P. Ames, J.T. Ames or Ames Manufacturing Co., out of Springfield, Massachusetts. Reg #3 refers to the registry or control number used for inventory purposes by the army when it took receipt of the gun. INSP WM refers to the initials of the inspector who gave the gun the once over before it was shipped out for battle. I am fairly certain these initials stand for William Murray Maynadier, a Major in the United States Army. I thought this was interesting as this was a Union inspected & produced weapon, yet it represents the Poague battery here at Gettysburg, a Confederate unit. Yr 41 is the manufacturing year. WT 783 is the weight of the tapered, bronze firing tube. The weight is like a fingerprint for these things, each one usually a different weight.
About the Foundry
In in 1835-6 Ames opened a bronze foundry. Although able to produce bells for civilian markets, the foundry opened production with the 6-pdrs field guns, 12-pdr field howitzers, 12-pdr field guns, and 24-pdr field howitzers of Model 1835. Successful completion of these contracts placed Ames (along with their other Massachusetts competitor Cyrus Alger of Boston) among the major weapons suppliers to the Army.
In 1840, Nathan Ames accompanied a military commission which toured Europe to examine cannon manufacturing techniques. No doubt Ames brought home a wealth of information applied to improving the product line. And apparently a the Army felt very comfortable with Ames, given the company a majority in bronze field piece contracts through the 1840s and 1850s. By 1845, Ames Manufacturing expanded the product line, adding an iron foundry. But Ames never seriously competed with contemporary iron gun foundries such as Alger, West Point, and Tredegar. SOURCE
About the Weapon
Howitzers were short-barreled guns that were optimized for firing explosive shells in a high trajectory, but also for spherical case shot and canister, over a shorter range than the guns. Field Howitzer calibers used in the Civil War were 12-pounder (4.62 inch bore), 24-pounder (5.82 inch bore), and 32-pounder (6.41 inch bore). Most of the howitzers used in the war were bronze, with notable exceptions of some of Confederate manufacture. Coupled to the 6-pounder field gun in allocations of the pre-war Army, the 12-pounder field Howitzer was represented by Models of 1838 and 1841. With a light weight and respectable projectile payload, the 12-pounder was only cycled out of the main field army inventories as production and availability of the 12-pounder "Napoleon" rose, and would see action in the Confederate armies up to the very end.
12-pounder mountain Howitzer saw service with infantry and cavalry forces in the rugged western theaters and prairies, and continued in service during the Indian Wars. This versatile piece could utilize one of two carriages: a small carriage that could be drawn by a single animal or could be rapidly broken down to carry on the backs of pack animals, or a slightly larger prairie carriage to be drawn by two animals. A veteran of the Mexican-American War, several hundred more of these diminutive tubes were produced by Union foundries during the Civil War, and the Confederate Tredegar foundry turned out as many as 21 more. SOURCE
The nearby Poague's Howitzers battery tablet, which marks the position of Poague's Artillery CS Battery on July 2-4, 1863 and narrates those events reads as follows:
Army of Northern Virginia
Hill's Corps Pender's Division
Poague's Howitzers
July 2 The Howitzers in the lunettes nearby belonged to the batteries of Poague's Battalion one to Ward's, two to Brooke's, one to Wyatt's, one to Graham's. But on this day they were detached and kept under shelter from the fire of Union artillery which they could not return by reason of their short range.
July 3 In the morning the lunettes were constructed and the Howitzers placed in them to meet a possible advance of the Union forces but as this did not occur they took no active part in the battle.
July 4 At dusk they withdrew from the field with their Battalion and began the march to Hagerstown.
This area is loaded with all types of cannons and guns, a veritable outside museum. I would suggest allowing up to an hour to fully inspect all the tablets, monuments and weapons in this area.