Improving Artillery Impressions

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

I may be able to add some info on this particular set up. You are right in that it is not correct in construction material or finish.

But this is not the point.

No that is the point. Both of the A/C and this thread "Improving Artillery Impressions"

To term it a show piece....a show piece of what ? What a CW cannon never looked like ? Improving artillery impressions ?

I know where you are coming from and I am not bustin your spherical cases personally....$32k or $0.32 why spend that kind of coin on the bronze 6lb'er and put it on an ersatz carriage and limber ? No different than a pillow ticking frock, really.

[GASharpshooter]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Wait, hang on a second. I didn't mean to sound insulting.

I would LOVE to be in an artillery unit at a reenactment where we could actually MOVE a full size piece. But you want to know why I fell out of love with the arty?

Right when the artillery should be firing as quickly as safety allows, we were doing things like "From the right, 5 second interval, FIRE!!" Sure, the crowd loved it. But for cryin out loud, we should be shootin as fast as we can load! There's a war on :)

Certainly I know how much it costs to field and feed a gun. I always ponied up the money the C.O. asked for to get through a weekend, too bad many of the others would not. I paid double, because my son was with me.

I love the old war dogs, I certainly wasn't meaning to push anyones buttons. But in my region, at reenactments the full size guns are static due to event rules. That's pretty much why many older reenactors do artillery impressions around these parts... plus, old guys can afford the full size guns as long as they don't have too many ex wives.

Right now though I'm enjoying marching, firing, trying to look natural while taking a hit, and goin home with an empty cartridge box.

(Artillery has better rations too...)

[artillerybuff]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Hey James, I see no insult, just good discussion.

Christopher, you are still missing the intent of Mark's post and looks like mine as well.

I made it VERY clear that picture posted is not a correct piece for reenacting, and if somebody wants to spend a million dollars on a pretty whatever I could really care less. That particular "show piece" is an example of fine workmanship in that you can actually see the detailed construction due to the clear finish. Paint can cover a multitude of sins; a clear finished product like hides nothing. Your work must be perfect to be able to make a piece like that, especially using expensive Walnut. That was the point of that project, which I was only trying to clarify.

I beleive Mark's intention was to illustrate how much this stuff can cost, and just happened to have that picure of a Bronze Cannon. I completely agree with you Christopher, I wouldn't spend a nickle on something that isn't correct or authentic, within reason. With that I mean I will substitute modern material (such as a steel barrel instead of cast iron) for safety, as long as it looks right and as it is dimensionally correct etc., or using a steel barrel painted bronze or even black for what was originally a bronze barrel. I take great pains to ensure my artillery equipment is as right as possible, and when I learn or discover something isn't quite right or needs improvement we are all over it. My Parrotts are fully and correctly rifled. How often do you see that?

How authentic do we really want to be? Do we want our cannons bursting like the orginal ones did? I think not, this is why today's cannon makers we use modern manufacturing techniques and why we reenactors incorporate modern steps in our artillery drill. There will always be compromises, we have to be realistic.


2nd Lt. Anthony A. Variz
Battery D 5th US

[hta1970]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Several people have discussed artillery drill here which is not something I thought of origninally including in my work, but looks like it is something everyone is interested in here. As such it bears further work by me....

I have seen events such as Anders "Spetember Storm specify either Gilham's or Andrews' manual for Confederate drill, with a few NPS modifications...

I know the French, Berry, Hunt manual was also available to Confederate batteries... though there are several editions which I have not yet compared...

Is there a standard in safe authentic drill which can generally be agreed upon in this forum as the prefered way to conduct drill and a safe number of cannoneers?

[Ringgold]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Hello all,

This is why most people use cast iron steel lined barrels. As far as bronze barrels goes, do you think they kept their barrels bright & shiny polished like gold? No, they let them patina or painted them black. Do you think they kept the Copper Limber Lids polished like mirrors? No, they let them patina or painted them black. The alternative is to give your enemy a big bright target to aim at.
. . .

2nd Lt. Anthony A. Variz
Battery D 5th US

These are interesting concepts. Do you have any documentation that backs these statements up? I can cite a few from the men of McKnight's Company M, 5th United States Artillery that seem to contradict this belief. They were very proud of their Light Twelve Pounders and the shine of their barrels and ammunition box lids was usually noted during inspections. As far as any unit painting their tubes black, I have never heard of this practice and am intrigued. I know many existing tubes have been subjected to painting by well-meaning, but ignorant care-takers who do not ( or did not) realize the damage they were doing to the protective patina they covering up.

As to the presentation of a big bright target, all I can say is that a battery deployed in the field is large enough to draw attention to itself regardless of any glistening metal they may be displaying. That's even assuming that there isn't any dust being kicked-up by the horses as they are going into battery.

Always trying to learn as much as I am able. Always looking for sources I haven't yet found.

[Vicksburg Dave]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

These are interesting concepts. Do you have any documentation that backs these statements up? I can cite a few from the men of McKnight's Company M, 5th United States Artillery that seem to contradict this belief. They were very proud of their Light Twelve Pounders and the shine of their barrels and ammunition box lids was usually noted during inspections. As far as any unit painting their tubes black, I have never heard of this practice and am intrigued. I know many existing tubes have been subjected to painting by well-meaning, but ignorant care-takers who do not ( or did not) realize the damage they were doing to the protective patina they covering up.

As to the presentation of a big bright target, all I can say is that a battery deployed in the field is large enough to draw attention to itself regardless of any glistening metal they may be displaying. That's even assuming that there isn't any dust being kicked-up by the horses as they are going into battery.

Always trying to learn as much as I am able. Always looking for sources I haven't yet found.

I agree, the only painting of nonferrous barrels that I have heard of is for quaker guns. Leaving anything made of bronze or copper unpolished is an anathema to officer's everywhere. It's not like everyone on the battlefield did not know where the guns were once the action began.

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

I found the retort of the "show piece" in post #9 to be in counter to the moderator's post #8 contention regarding a certain amount of arty's exemption from accuracy based on amount of funds expended.

or in other words....

look here is a arty kit that cost $32k....you got $32K to spend ? But on scrutiny the $32k arty kit is inaccurate, and 2 of "M-triad"..... materials and methods are incorrect.

This is coming from someone who entered the hobby by purchasing a full scale gun, only to sell it soon after learning how inaccurate I was.

[AZReenactor]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Anthony,
I too am extremely curious about the notion that bronze tubes were allowed to oxidize, become dirty, or were painted. It has long been my understanding that keeping them polished was a safety issue as well as a matter of pride. The elasticity of a bronze barrel means it will begin developing dark colored veins and discolor before it fails. I haven't yet found a period source stating that barrels were to be kept polished and why but think this issue is alluded to in Gibbons' 1860 Artillerists Manual where he talks about the inelasticity of iron guns and their tendency to fail catastrophically without warning when they rupture.

As others have mentioned, there are many references to the bronze tubes being highly polished and the vast target beyond a shiny barrel that a fully equipped battery present.

As far as bronze barrels goes, do you think they kept their barrels bright & shiny polished like gold? No, they let them patina or painted them black. Do you think they kept the Copper Limber Lids polished like mirrors? No, they let them patina or painted them black. The alternative is to give your enemy a big bright target to aim at.

[artillerybuff]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Christopher, I give up trying to explain it, you seem really hung up on that picture. The price of that piece is representative of the approximate current price of a 6 Pdr. with Carriage & Limber, properly made of White Oak and correctly painted. The price is what I thought it was about. If not, how about if we let it go? We both agree the picture/piece it not authentic.

Troy and others, thank you VERY much for your questions & comments re: barrels and ammo box lids. I do not have documentation I can lay my hands on and you all may be very correct. I based those statements on what I thought were expert historians that I have come to know in the past 10 years of reenacting, people I trusted. I am continual ridiculed by experienced reenactors for always having my ammo box lids brightly polished and bronze barrels gleaming for the reasons I stated earlier. People always ask me, "is this all brand new"? When they find out some of it is many years old they cannot believe it. It is good to know I am justified AND period correct. Thank you all!

Next time those people speak up I am going to ask them for their source, not their opinion. Perhaps they based this on the fact that many surviving pieces were in fact painted, but without documentation to show it was done while in use I will continue to polish my stuff. This we at least know is correct...

Cheers!

Anthony A. Variz

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

There really is nothing to let go....but ok. Just discussion.

Please post some pics of your bronze barrels and copper limber tops and lets get this thread loaded with some accurate representations.

Do you have a website for your unit and guns ?

Thanks in advance....

[Scott Gutzke]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Has anyone ever really considered the modern logistics of moving 6 cannons, 6-12 caissons, traveling forge, battery wagon, 150 men and 150+ horses from their homes to an event? That alone is a daunting task for one group to do alone. Maintaining and storing all that equipment would be a full time job. Not to mention caring for and training the horses.

I know of one group in Illinois that has 6 guns and limbers, at least one caisson, one traveling forge, and one battery wagon. They use half a dozen converted school busses to move their equipment. However, they don't have horses (and who could blame them) because the logistics are just incredible. They also don't leave the Midwest.

An artillery group that I am part of (Light B, 4th U.S.) had a donor interested in letting us use his horses. The insurance was not the deal breaker because the person had a lot of money and was willing to cover the insurance, but having to train the horses was the trouble. We would have had to work with the horses pulling the gun for several hours almost every day. We did not have enough people living in the same area as the horse owner, and could not train the horses properly. It was too bad because it would have been a great step forward for Midwest artillery reenactors.

[Scott Gutzke]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Mr. Roscoe

As a reenactor serving with the "Iron Brigade Battery" you mention (Light B, 4th U.S.) I would like to let you know that I, and several of my comrades, portray detached volunteers (men from New York, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan). As you point out, this is historically correct for many regular army artillery units and this unit in particular. At one time, only 3 members of the battery (Capt. James Stewart, Bugler John Cook, and 1st Sgt. John Mitchell) were actually regular army soldiers. The rest were detached volunteers.

An interesting note I learned while reading a letter written by a detached volunteer who served with the battery. Apparently, many of the NCO positions were filled by volunteer troops. These volunteer troops were allowed to call themselves by their position (Sgt., Cpl.) but they could not wear the rank or receive the higher pay that they were entitled. It sounds like there was some regulation that volunteer troops could not serve as NCOs or Officers in regular army units. This soldier decided not to reenlist and was discharged at the end of his term of service because the army would not pay him or recognize him as a sergeant, a position he had occupied in the battery for several years.

However, in the same battery, Thomas Goodman was detached from his volunteer regiment (6th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, Company K) were he was a First Lieutenant and served as a First Lieutenant with Battery B. He served with the battery for an unknown amount of time, on temporary duty until he was mortally wounded at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia around May 9, 1864. I know that he served in the regular army artillery as an enlisted man before the war, but this fact does not seem to agree with the letter that this soldier wrote home as to why he was leaving the army. (I cannot seem to find this source at this time.)

Could anyone shed some like on this? Have any of you seen such a regulation? Is this veteran just making "excuses" for not continuing in the war? (Not that he had to, since he was in just about every major engagement that the Army of the Potomac fought in from 1861 until 1864.)

[1stMaine]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Scott,

I do not have my copy of "Maine At Gettysburg" to hand, but there is mention in it of the 16th Maine Infantry (1st corps) having some 60+ men on detached duty to one of the 1st Corps batteries at Gettysburg. My reading of it indicated that they had been serving there for some time.

It was these men who were to form the nucleus of the reconstituted 16th Maine, after it was overrun and destroyed on Herr's Ridge on 1 July, 1861.

As to clothing, I would susoect that they were, indeed, all wearing their issued uniforms, and that any NCO's with them would have been wearing their insignia in branch colour, IE: blue. One of the nice things about Federal uniforms is that everyone gets to wear a sack coat. makes it easy tio uniform the battery, and except for Branch of Service insignia, hard to tell folks apart :)

[ajroscoe]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Scott,
Thank you for your reply, its great to hear that an artillery unit does portray its infantry volunteers. I didn't realize that so much of a battery's man power would end up being made up of infantry volunteers, though I realize battery B is a special case, often being in the thick of the fighting. Its very interesting to find out that the volunteers couldn't "make rank" as it were, despite being on detached service. I suppose that if they were to be promoted, it would count against the regiment's NCO allotment.
Its nice to hear that you show that piece of history, as I have never seen another artillery unit show this practice. I think its important for all of us to remember that many of the batteries formed close associations with the brigades and divisions in which they served (at least prior to Gen. Hunt's reorganization of the artillery into brigades prior to Gettysburg for the Eastern Theater) as any units serving together are apt to do. Hopefully, reenactors can remember more often that the military is a team that relies on the advantages of each part of it to help overcome the weaknesses of the others. This is something little portrayed by us as reenactors, as we get caught in our own area: infantry, artillery, sharpshooter, cavalry, ect.

[1stMaine]

Re: Improving Artillery Impressions

Andrew,

Over on the CS side, Hood's Texas brigade had a similar affection for Battery D (Reilly’s Battery) 10th North Carolina State Troops (1st Regiment N.C. Artillery). Without exception, every memoir i own about Hood's Brigade mentions them in ine form or another, and usually with much admiration.

Respects,