Civil War - Field Artillery
In 1841, the U.S. Army selected bronze as the standard material for fieldpieces and at the same time adopted a new system of field artillery. The 1841 fieId artillery system consisted entirely of smoothbore muzzIe-loaders: 6- and 8-pounder guns; 12-, 24-, and 32- pounder howitzers; and 12-pounder mountain howitzers. A pre-Civil War battery usually consisted of six fieldpieces - four guns and two howitzers, A 6-pounder battery contained four 6-pounder guns and two 8-pounder howitzers, while a 12 pounder battery had four 12 pounder guns and two 20 pounder howitzers.
The guns fired solid shot, shell, spherical case, grapeshot, and canister rounds, while howitzers fired shell, spherical case, grapeshot, and canister rounds.
The 6-pounder gun (effective range 1,525 yards) was the primary fieldpiece used from the time of the Mexican War unti1 the Civil War. By 1861, however, the 1841 artillery system based on the 6-pounder was obsolete. In 1857, a new and more versatile fieldpiece, the 12-pounder gun-howitzer (Napoleon), Model 1857, appeared on the scene. Designed as a multipurpose piece to replace existing guns and howitzers, the Napoleon fired canister and shell, like the 12-pounder howitzer, and solid shot comparable in range to the l£er gun. The Napoleon was a bronze, muzzle-loading smoothbore with an effective range of 1,620 yards. Served by a nine-man crew, the piece could fire at a sustained rate of two aimed shots per minute. With less than finy Napoleons initially available in 1861, obsolete 6-pounders remained in the inventories of both armies for some time, especially in the western theater.
Another new development in field artillery was the introduction of rifling. Although rifled guns provided greater range and accuracy, smoothbores were generally more reliable and faster to load. Rifled ammunition was semifixed, so the charge and the projectile bad to be loaded separately. In addition, the canister load of the rifle did not perform as well as that of the smoothbore. Initially, some smoothbores were rifled on the James pattern, but they soon proved unsatisfactory because the bronze rifling eroded too easily. Therefore, most rifled artillery was either wrought iron or cast iron with a wrought-iron reinforcing band.
The most commonly used rifled guns were the 10-pounder Parrott and the Rodman, or 3-inch ordnance rifle. The Parrott rifle was a cast-iron piece, easily identified by the wrought-iron band reinforcing the breech. The lo-pounder Parrott was made in two models: the Model 1861 had a 2.9-inch rifled bore with three lands and grooves and a slight muzzle swell, while the Model 1863 version had a 3-inch bore and no muzzle swell. The Rodman or ordnance rifle was a long-tubed, wrought-iron piece that had a 3-inch bore with seven lands and grooves. Ordnance rifles were sturdier and considered superior in accuracy and reliability to the IQounder Parrott.
By 1860, the ammunition for field artillery emsisted of four general types for both smoothbores and riflesr solid shot, shell, case, and canister. Solid shot was a round cast-iron projectile for smoothbores and an elongated projectile, known as a bolt, for rifled guns. Solid shot, with its smashing or battering effect, was used in a counterbattery role or against buildings and massed formations. The conical-shaped bolt lacked the effectiveness of the cannonball because it tended to bury itself on impact instead of bounding along the ground like a bowling ball.
Shell, also known as common or explosive shell, whether spherical or conical, was a hollow projeetiIe filled with an explosive charge of black powder that was detonated by a time fuse. Shell was designed to break into jagged pieces, producing an antipersonnel effect, but the low-order detonation seldom produced more than three to five fragments. In addition to its casualty-producing effects, shell had a psychological impact when it exploded over the heads of troops.
It was also used against field fortifications and in a counterbattery role. Case or case shot far both smoothbore and rifled guns was a hollow projectile with thinner walls than shell. The projectile was filled with round lead or iron balls set in a matrix of sulphur that surrounded a small bursting charge. Case was primarily used in an antipersonnel role. This type of round had been invented by Henry Shrapnel, a British artillery officer, hence the term "shrapnel".
Lastly, there was canister, probably the most effective round and the round of choice at close range (400 yards or less) against massed troops. Canister was essentially a tin can filled with iron balls packed in sawdust with no internal bursting charge. When fired, the can disintegrated, and the balls followed their own paths to the target. The canister round for the 12-pounder Napoleon consisted of twenty-seven 1 1/2-inch iron balls packed inside an elongated tin cylinder. At extremely close ranges, men often loaded double charges of canister. By 1861, canister had replaced grapeshot in tbe ammunition chests of field batteries.
The Civil War would foster a change for employment of artillery. Because a number of artillery positions were over-run by infantry using the new rifled musket, the impetus toward indirect fire rather than direct fire began. It was this technological improvement that forced the artillery off the main battle line.
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