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While perusing through old research materials I have stored, I ran across this little tidbit that has always intrigued me.
WEEKLY COLUMBUS [GA] ENQUIRER, April 8, 1862, p. 1, c. 4
Cannon Metal.
Adjutant General Wayne, in a letter to Mrs. Dr. Blackburn, Barnesville, says:
"I fear that some of our patriotic citizens, with more zeal than knowledge, are about to inconvenience our good housewives of Georgia without any corresponding advantage to our cause. Brass is a composition of copper and zinc, and of no use in making guns, which, like bells, are made of copper and tin.
"If Gen. Beauregard, in his appeal to the planters of Mississippi, meant anything more than to arouse their slumbering patriotism to active exertion, he wanted the tin of which their bells were partly composed. We have the copper, but for the fabrication of bronze, (commonly, but erroneously called brass guns,) we want tin.
"That you may understand this, I will tell you that science has determined for guns, as best, the proportions of nine parts of copper to one part of tin; and for bells seven or eight parts of copper to three parts of tin. By having a large number of bells, therefore, we can add two or three times the weight of copper, as analysis may determine their composition, and bring them to the standard of gun metal.
"The lightest field piece in our batteries, a six pounder, weighs on an average, eight hundred and eighty-four pounds. For the casting of a six pounder, therefore, at least one thousand pounds of metal would be necessary. Bronze guns are used in field batteries, only for their lighter weight, by which the battery is more readily moved. They are not so durable as iron guns. Science, within the past five years, has opened the way for casting iron guns of sufficient lightness for field uses, and there is not a foundry in the Confederacy that is not now working to its utmost ability. If there is, I should like to know it, and it should not be idle long.
"The tin referred to is block tin, not sheet thin, which is only sheet iron, washed with a solution of tin. I mention this that we may not have our wives stripped to no purpose."
WEEKLY COLUMBUS [GA] ENQUIRER, April 8, 1862, p. 1, c. 4
Cannon Metal.
Adjutant General Wayne, in a letter to Mrs. Dr. Blackburn, Barnesville, says:
"I fear that some of our patriotic citizens, with more zeal than knowledge, are about to inconvenience our good housewives of Georgia without any corresponding advantage to our cause. Brass is a composition of copper and zinc, and of no use in making guns, which, like bells, are made of copper and tin.
"If Gen. Beauregard, in his appeal to the planters of Mississippi, meant anything more than to arouse their slumbering patriotism to active exertion, he wanted the tin of which their bells were partly composed. We have the copper, but for the fabrication of bronze, (commonly, but erroneously called brass guns,) we want tin.
"That you may understand this, I will tell you that science has determined for guns, as best, the proportions of nine parts of copper to one part of tin; and for bells seven or eight parts of copper to three parts of tin. By having a large number of bells, therefore, we can add two or three times the weight of copper, as analysis may determine their composition, and bring them to the standard of gun metal.
"The lightest field piece in our batteries, a six pounder, weighs on an average, eight hundred and eighty-four pounds. For the casting of a six pounder, therefore, at least one thousand pounds of metal would be necessary. Bronze guns are used in field batteries, only for their lighter weight, by which the battery is more readily moved. They are not so durable as iron guns. Science, within the past five years, has opened the way for casting iron guns of sufficient lightness for field uses, and there is not a foundry in the Confederacy that is not now working to its utmost ability. If there is, I should like to know it, and it should not be idle long.
"The tin referred to is block tin, not sheet thin, which is only sheet iron, washed with a solution of tin. I mention this that we may not have our wives stripped to no purpose."
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