THE STEEN CANNON HISTORY
The Secession Cannon is a full scale authentic reproduction of a U. S. 6 Pounder, Model of 1841.
Fully operable, it was manufactured by Steen Cannons http://www.steencannons.com/ from
specifications of artillery for the Land Services of the United States. It is solid cast, machine
bored and unsleeved in bronze and ductal iron. Its length is 65”; bore 3.62” and weighs
approximately 850 pounds.
6-pounder smoothbore, M1841
This popular workhorse of the Mexican War era
was regarded as superseded by the Union
artillery, but was still heavily employed by a
Confederate army that could not afford to pass
up any opportunities. The gun shows the last vestiges of the highly decorated artillery profiles
that had prevailed until the beginning of the century: breech band, cascable fillet, fillet and
roundel at the throat, and an echinus on the muzzle face were also features of the M1841 12pounder. All were dispensed with on the M1857 Napoleon that displaced both these weapons as
the smoothbore of choice for both armies. Attempts to convert some of these guns to rifles, using
the James system of rifling, had only marginal success. Some have also been converted to "false
Napoleons" by the National Park Service, grinding off the moldings and the sharp discontinuity
between the reinforce and the chase, and enlarging the last few inches of the bore. The result can
be quite confusing for the battlefield tourist.
Basic Terminology
This is a schematic of a Napoleon, with the addition of a chamber purely for illustrative
purposes. (From Dean S. Thomas, Cannons: An Introduction to Civil War Artillery)
a - knob
b - neck
c - vent
d - trunnion
e - muzzle swell
f - muzzle face
g - muzzle
h - rimbase
i - cascable
j - breech
k - chamber
l - bore
Nomenclature
By the early nineteenth century artillerists in most western countries had settled on a standard
method of naming cannon, based on the weight of the solid shot used with the piece. Since all
shot was spherical, and typically made of iron, this weight corresponded with the bore size of the
piece. Any cannon with a 3.67-inch bore would use a shot weighing six pounds, and would be
known as a six-pounder; a cannon with a 4.62-inch bore would be a 12-pounder. (You
mathematics aficionados will note that the ratio of the bores is a good approximation to the cube
root of two, since the volume of the spherical ball, and therefore its weight, increases in
proportion with the cube of its measurement.) The United States system of ordnance using these
names is described in the next section.
The advent of rifled cannon threw this system into the proverbial cocked hat, as many existing
pieces seemed as outmoded as that article of clothing. Typical rifled ammunition is not a sphere
but a cylinder with a pointed nose. (See the Ammunition page.) Because the rifle bolt can vary in
length, there was no longer any direct correspondence between the gun's bore size and the weight
of its solid shot. It was logical to refer to these new guns by their bore diameter, but the life of
the military has not been logic, and the creators of these designs tried to give them names that
would seem familiar to their users.
The system of rifled ordnance designed by Robert Parker Parrott is the best example of the
confusion resulting from the attempt to pour new wine into old bottles. His rifled gun with a 2.9inch bore was designated a 10-pounder Parrott, his 3.67-inch rifle a 20-pounder Parrott, and so
forth. However, depending upon the type of ammunition used, these pounder designations were
more theoretical than real. Parrot's largest rifles, the 8-inch and 10-inch, were known as 200- and
300-pounders in the Army, but as 150- and 250-pounders in the Navy. Another example of
confusion stems from the attempts to rifle existing weapons, particularly the superseded sixpounders. Their 3.67-inch bores meant that the weight of their rifled ammunition could be
somewhere between two and three times their original nominal weight.
Modern authors tend to reserve the traditional "pounder" names for the smoothbores to which
they more logically apply, and refer to all rifles by their bore diameter, with a parenthetical
reference to their popular names. Readers of contemporary accounts should be aware that
references can be ambiguous, and that authors used names inconsistently. Given the context, the
"3-inch rifle" might be a reference to the wrought iron ordnance rifle, or to any rifle with a bore
of three inches, including both that design and the M1863 10-pounder Parrott.
Common Weapons
The system of ordnance adopted by the U.S. Army in the 1840's was the picture of simplicity:
six- and 12-pounder field guns, 12-, 24-, and 32-pounder field howitzers, 18- and 24-pounder
siege and garrison guns, and 32- and 42-pounder sea-coast guns. To this were added columbiads
and mortars. The principal modification to this system prior to the War was the substitution of
the light 12-pounder as the field weapon of choice. However, this system was soon made
obsolete by necessity and technology.
The Civil War required a sudden and massive mobilization of military resources. The immediate
need for field artillery resulted in the use of a bewildering variety of pieces, ranging from
superseded ordnance to modern experimental models imported from Great Britain. Amongst the
array of Armstrongs, Blakelys, Wiards, and Whitworths, it is still possible to identify a relatively
small number of makes and models of muzzle-loading cannon that served as the workhorses of
the Civil War battlefield.
GUNS & HOWITZERS
As a term of art, "guns" are relatively long-barreled cannon designed to fire projectiles with a
nearly flat trajectory. Howitzers are shorter-barreled cannon with a chamber at the base of the
bore, designed to take a smaller charge. Their range is shorter and the trajectory of the projectile
shows more arc.
Name
Tube
Length
Tube
Weight
Bore
Diameter
Range1
Material
GUNS
Six-Pounder, M1841
60 inches 884 pounds
3.67 inches 1520 yards Bronze
Light 12-pounder, M18572 66 inches 1227 pounds 4.62 inches 1620 yards Bronze
10-pounder Parrott, M1861 78 inches 890 pounds
2.9 inches
2000 yards Cast Iron
20-Pounder Parrott
89 inches 1750 pounds 3.67 inches 2100 yards Cast Iron
3-inch ordnance rifle
73 inches 816 pounds
3.0 inches
1850 yards Wrought Iron
HOWITZERS
12-Pounder
53 inches 778 pounds
24-pounder
65 inches 1318 pounds 5.82 inches 1325 yards Bronze
Mountain Howitzer
37 inches 220 pounds
4.62 inches 1100 yards Bronze
4.62 inches 900 yards
Bronze
1
At five degrees of elevation
Familiarly known as the "Napoleon". It was also referred to as a "gun-howitzer", because it was
capable of firing at a relatively high angle, like a howitzer, but this term is not strictly apt
because it has no chamber.
2
The following link by South Bend Replicas, provides more historical information and
illustrations.