Artillery Implements

Continuing tonight, with the focus on artillery we will look at some of the necessary implements.

#1 The Sponge Rammer - used to sponge out the bore after firing and to ram the load.  The staff and rammer head are made of ash.  The sponge head made of poplar or elm.  The sponge is made of shearling or Brussels carpet.

#2 The Worm - used to remove any debris from the previous firing.  The staff was made from ash, and the worm from iron.

#3 The Sponge Bucket - made of iron with a tarred interior.

#4 The Tube Pouch - a leather pouch that held the friction primers, lanyard, thumbstall, priming ware and gimlet.

#5 The Thumbstall - made of leather and filled with horsehair.  Use to protect against the heat when venting the gun.

#6 Priming Wire - made from brass

#7 The Lanyard - used to ignite the gunpowder.  They are made from cord, with a wooden handle and an iron hook.

#8 The Gunner's Haversack - these are made of leather and are used to carry the black powder charge from the limber to the piece.

#9 The Trail Handspike - made of hickory or oak.

The Carriage - Part 2

Continuing tonight with parts of the carriage that would have been, even in the time of the civil war, made out of iron.

#1 The Trail Plate - attached to the stock trail, it included a ring called the lunette which receives the pintle hook.

#2 The Pointing Rings - a large and small one.  They received the handspike to aim or point the piece.

#3 Trail Handles - Used to lift the trail

#4 The Wheel Guard Plates - protect the stock from the wheels of the limber.

#5 The Prolonge Hooks - placed on the upper surface of the stock and used to secure the prolonge.

#6 The Lock Chain - placed on the side of the carriage, it keeps wheel from turning.

#7 The Sponge and Rammer Stop - under the stock they keep the sponge and rammer from sliding [these seem to be missing from the fabricated carriages on the field.]

#8 Sponge Chains - holds the sponge rammers in place

#9 The Hasp of the Sponge Chain

#10 The Ear Plate - includes key and chain to support the worm

#11 Elevation Screw - used to lower and raise the breech

#12 The Trunnion Plate - protects the cheeks

#13 The Cap Squares - place over the trunnions to hold them in place

#14 The Rondel - are spacers between the cheeks and the stock

#15 Washer Hooks

#16 Handspike Rings - support the handspike

#17 The Under Straps - these are bolted the cheeks under the stock.

#18 Implement Hooks - these support the sponge rammers and the worm [on a real civil war carriage you would also find a hasp for the sponge bucket]

#19 Linch Pin and Washer - this is where the wheel is attached to the axletree

#20 Nave Bands - for reinforcement

#21 The Tire - a metal band around the wheel

The Carriage - Part One

We move on tonight to the Carriage.  This is what carries the Gun [which I posted about last night, onto the field.  The original carriages were made out of a heavy white oak.  The ones you find on the field today are cast iron.  There are still some replicas from the 1890's and early 1900's which were made by the Calvin Gilbert Co of Gettysburg on the field.

#1 The Cheeks - the two piece of wood that the gun rest between.

#2 The Stock - two square pieces of wood, joined to cheeks and connecting to the two side of the carriage.

#3 The Trail - is the curved part of the stock that rests on the ground when the piece is in battery.

#4 The Axle Body - is a cover over the axletree

#5 The Wheels - these are made up of three parts.

#5A - The Nave

#5B The Spokes

#5C The Felloes

We will continue tomorrow with the metal parts of the carriage.

Artillery 101 - The Gun

Today we are covering the parts of the cannon or gun.  Or as my Dad would have said, the business part of the cannon.

#1 The Bore - this is the interior of the gun.  This is the part receives the charge.  It includes all the part that is bored out. [In the case of this picture you're down the bore.]

#2 The Muzzle - is the entrance of the bore.

#3 The Breech - is the solid metal between the bottom of the bore and the cascable.

#4 The Cascable - is the part at the opposite end of gun from the muzzle.  It includes the knob, neck and fillet.

#5 The Reinforce - this is the thickest part of the gun.  It offer resistance from the forces of the powder and the projectile.

#6 The Chase - is the part of the gun in front of the reinforce, or the barrel.

#7 The Swell of the Muzzle - this give the gun strength, preventing the mouth from splitting from the shock of the projectile leaving the muzzle.

#8 The Face - this is the front plane of the gun.  You will find information about the gun stamped into face, such as maker, weight, and serial number.

#9 The Trunnions - this are the cylinders on the sides of the gun which support the gun on its carriage.

#10 The Rimbases - are the part which units the trunnions with the body of the gun.

#11 The Vent - this is the hole near the bottom of the bore through which the charge is fired with a fuse.

The Men From Minnesota

About 200 surviving members of the 1st Minnesota with family and friends converged on Gettysburg in 1897, for the dedication of their monuments on Hancock Ave.  The 1st Minnesota Monument is located near where the Regiment began their charge on 2 July 1863.

The 1st Minnesota was organized in April 1861 at Fort Snelling, MN.  Minnesota's Governor Alexander Ramsey having been in Washington, DC when Fort Sumter was fired upon, went to President Lincoln and is supposed to have been the first Governor to promise troops.  The first action these men from the west experienced was at First Manassas.

On 2 July the 1st Minnesota was posted as support of Thomas' Battery C, 4th US artillery, when Major General Winfield Hancock came looking for troops to plug a hole in the line, toward which the Confederates were advancing.  Hancock ordered them forward and the Minnesota men ran into the fight without firing a shot until they reached Plum Run.  The fight there only lasted about 15 minutes, but it bought the time needed to hold the Union line.  The unit had about 82% casualties in this fight, including their Colonel, William Colvill.

The fight wasn't over for the men from Minnesota.  What was left of the regiment was posted along the wall on 3 July, near their second monument.  Here they helped in the repulse of Pickett's Charge.  There were 17 more casualties here, including Captain Nathan Messick, who had taken over command of the Regiment after Colville's wounding.  The end of the fighting left 232 casualties within this small 330 man regiment, 50 of whom were killed

In 1887 the Minnesota State government voted to give $20,000 for a monument to place on the field at Gettysburg.  A commission was set up to locate a place on the field, and approve a design for the monument.  Three veterans of the Regiment, William Lochren, Christopher Heffelfinger, and Matthew Marvin picked a spot for their monument, and contracted Minneapolis sculpture Jacob Fjeld.  The final monument was placed on ground in 1893, it included a charging 9 ½ foot tall bronze soldier on top of a Barre, VT granite base.

In 1897 the State of Minnesota chartered a train to take the Veterans and their family and friends to Gettysburg for a dedication of the monument.  About 200 men took the trip.  Most of the dignitaries stayed the night of 1 Jul 1897 in the Eagle Hotel on Washington Street.  The dedication was held the next day.  As a special guest, Tillie Pierce was introduced.  Her family had taken care of William Colvill after his wounding on 2 July 1863.

A Battlefield Newcomer

The Indiana State Monument is a relative newcomer to the Gettysburg Battlefield.  The Codori Memorial company began installing it in Spangler Spring in 1970.

The monument was designed by Al Yeager.  It has two monoliths,  12 feet 11 inches high made out of Barre, VT grante.  They sit on a patio with a walkway constructed of Bedford, IN limestone.  The dedication was held 1 Jul 1971, to "honor the memory of the valiant."

The monument represents the 5 Indiana  infantry and 2 Indiana cavalry units who fought at Gettysburg.  A total of about 2500 men, of whom 552 were casualties.  It is located in Spangler Meadow, in the area where the 27th Indiana made a fatal charge on the morning of 3 Jul 1863.  Among the units listed are the 1st Indiana Cavalry, Companies I and K, which don't have a monument of the their own on the field at Gettysburg. These units of cavalry served as the Headquarters guard for the 11th Corps.

The Indiana State Monument was constructed by Codori Memorials, a locally owned business.  The Indiana monument was the first, the company put up on the Gettysburg Battlefield.  Jim Codori bought the business in 1964.  He is the 3rd Great Grandson of Nicholas Codori, who owned the Codori Farm on the Emmitsburg Road.

A Southern Park Commissioner

William McKendree Robbins was the second Southern member appointed to the Gettysburg Park Commission.  Having fought here with the 4th Alabama Infantry, he had an interest in preserving the field.

William was born 1828 in Trinity, North Carolina.  He studied the law and opened a practice before the war in Eufaula, Alabama.  He was Captain of Company G of the 4th Alabama.  They fought on 2 July on the southwest side of Little Round Top, and on 3 July they assisted in the repulse of Farnsworth's Charge.  Robbins was promoted to Major after Chickamauga.  He was wounded at the Plank Road during the Wilderness.  After the war Robbins served the state of North Carolina in the US Congress from 1873 to 1879.

A 1893 Act of Congress created the Gettysburg Park Commission.  It was established 3 Mar 1893 by the War Department.  The Commission was to be made up by three men, the Park Historian, John Batchelder, a Union Veteran, John Page Nicholson, and a Confederate Veteran, William Forney.  After Forney's death 16 Jan 1894, President Grover Cleveland appointed William Robbins to the Park Commission as its southern member.

The Commission set out to add lands to the park on which the Confederate lines were located.  They had roads built and improved.  It is also at this time that tablets and markers were placed on the field.  Among these were a 1899 proposal for each Confederate Regiment to have their position market with a tablet.  The only Confederate regiment to take advantage of this was the 4th Alabama.  This marker is thought to have been paid for by Robbins himself.  It was placed in it's location on West Confederate Ave to the North of the Alabama State Monument.

William Robbins died 5 May 1905 in Salisbury, North Carolina and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Statesville, NC.

Soldiers National Monument

This is the Soldiers National Monument located in the center of the semicircle in the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg.  The designer of the cemetery, William Saunders planned for a monument to be placed there at the highest point of the cemetery.

The monument was designed by James G Batterson, and the five figures which adorn the monument were sculpted by Randolph Rogers.  The monument is 60 feet high, with a 25 foot base made mostly out of Westerly, Rhode Island granite.  The cornerstone was laid 4 Jul 1865, in a ceremony with the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.

The five figures on the Soldiers National Monument are carved from Italian marble.  The sculptures were done in Italy and shipped here.  These figures have meaning.  The one at the top of the monument is the Genius of Liberty.  She holds both a wreath of peace and a sword to represent the struggle for freedom.  The other four figures are a soldier epitomizing War, who is telling his story to Clio the Goddess of History.  A mechanic standing in for Peace and Plenty holding a shock of wheat.  You may also note that there are 18 stars circling the monument which are for each of the "States whose sons gave their lives."

The monument was dedicated 1 July 1869.  The prayer was given by Henry Ward Beecher.   The address was recited by George G Meade.