ARTILLERY Sisting of the Ninth, Fourteenth, Thirty- Is Too Large to Be Carried by an Individual

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ARTILLERY Sisting of the Ninth, Fourteenth, Thirty- Is Too Large to Be Carried by an Individual 25 ARTILLERY sisting of the Ninth, Fourteenth, Thirty- is too large to be carried by an individual. eighth, Fifty-third, and Fifty-seventh Vir- Many types of artillery were used during ginia regiments during the Battle of Get- the Civil War, and each type could be clas- tysburg, he participated in a particularly sified in several ways, depending on its courageous attack later known as Pickett’s ease of use, type of barrel, weight of am- Charge. In this attack Armistead led 150 munition, method of loading, trajectory of soldiers fourteen hundred yards across ammunition fire, and type of deployment open ground under enemy fire, while hold- (i.e., whether it was best suited for attack- ing his sword high with his hat atop the tip ing or defending troops on the battlefield, of the blade, and then climbed up and over defending a seacoast or city, or laying a Union-built obstruction to approach the siege to a town or fort). enemy’s artillery. At this point he was When classified according to weight wounded by cannon fire. Two days later he and typical use, artillery fell into two died in an enemy hospital, having willed broad categories, field and heavy, with his possessions to Union general Winfield heavy artillery subdivided into siege ar- Hancock, with whom he had become tillery and coastal artillery. Field artillery friends in the 1840s when the two were was employed on the front lines because serving in the U.S. Army on the American it was relatively easy to transport from frontier. See also Gettysburg, Battle of; battlefield to battlefield. Heavy artillery, Hancock, Winfield Scott; Pickett’s Charge. as its name implies, was much more dif- ficult to move, which meant that it was Army, Regular (U.S.) usually employed against permanent Regular Army was the term used to differ- structures whose destruction required sus- entiate the U.S. land force that existed tained bombardment or against ships ap- prior to the Civil War from the Federal, or proaching the shore. These two types of Union, armies established at the outset of heavy artillery were called siege and the Civil War. Approximately sixteen thou- coastal artillery, respectively. Of the two, sand men were in the Regular Army at this the coastal weapons were the largest. time, stationed at various military bases Artillery was also divided into two cat- across the country. The army maintained egories according to the type of barrel: only 163 pieces of field artillery (cannons). smoothbore cannon and rifled cannon. Alarger force was unnecessary before the The smoothbore cannon had a barrel that war because the Regular Army shared re- was smooth inside, while the rifled can- sponsibility for national defense with local non had a barrel whose interior had been militias. Once the war began, however, the scored with grooves. This internal groov- United States increased the strength of the ing, or rifling, made the weapon’s ammu- Regular Army to 22,714 men. This entity nition spin as it exited the barrel, thereby remained separate from the Union army increasing the projectile’s accuracy, force, throughout the war, although some Regu- and range. For example, a smoothbore lar Army officers were reassigned to train cannon might have a maximum range of the unskilled volunteers who made up the seventeen hundred yards, whereas the bulk of the Union’s forces. See also same cannon with rifling might have a armies, Union; artillery. maximum range of twenty-three hundred yards. However, in many cases this in- artillery crease in range did not result in greater Also known as cannon, artillery is any accuracy because the soldiers firing the kind of weapon that fires a projectile, cannon often could not see their target takes more than one person to operate, and clearly. ARTILLERY 26 Smoothbore and rifled cannons differed which had shorter barrels than guns, fired in their composition. Smoothbore weapons projectiles in an arching trajectory. Mor- were usually manufactured out of bronze, tars, with an even shorter barrel, fired on a although as the war went on this material steep up-and-down trajectory. Some ar- became unavailable in the South so they tillery pieces were hybrids of these basic were made of cast iron. Rifled weapons, types. The Napoleon, for example, was however, could be made only of wrought considered a gun-howitzer. or cast iron because the grooves would Artillery could be classified yet another quickly wear away in bronze, which is rel- way, according to whether the cannon atively soft. Nonetheless, sometimes old was muzzle-loading, which meant that it bronze weapons were later rifled in a tem- was loaded from the barrel end of the porary attempt to improve their accuracy. weapon (the end where the ammunition Because rifling was a fairly recent inno- exited upon firing), or breech-loading, vation when the Civil War began, smooth- which meant that it was loaded from the bore cannons outnumbered rifled ones. As trigger end of the weapon. Most Civil the war progressed, however, the number War artillery, including the Napoleon, of rifled cannons increased. In fact, by the was muzzle-loading. The Confederate end of the war the rifled siege gun had Army of Northern Virginia, however, largely replaced the smoothbore siege gun, used breech-loading artillery made by a because the former proved more effective British manufacturer, Whitworths. These in blasting through brick and stone fortifi- cannons, known as Whitworths, had rifled cations. barrels and an effective range of twenty- Despite the advantages of rifling, the eight hundred yards. most commonly used field artillery for In the armies of the Union, the men re- both the North and the South remained a sponsible for firing and maintaining ar- smoothbore cannon known as the tillery were part of a unit known as a bat- Napoleon. Named for French ruler Louis tery. Each battery was typically assigned Napoleon, who first commissioned its cre- six pieces of artillery, six ammunition cais- ation, this relatively lightweight cannon sons (wagons), a commanding officer with was first employed by the U.S. Army in the rank of captain, two other commis- 1857. During the Civil War, the U.S. Army sioned officers, fourteen noncommissioned purchased 1,127 more of the weapons, and officers, and 122 soldiers with the rank of the South manufactured or purchased ap- private. In the armies of the Confederacy, proximately 500. The Napoleon was pop- the artillery battery was structured much ular because it was highly accurate at short the same, but after 1862 each battery had range and very easy to transport. It was only four artillery pieces because of a typically fired at targets less than 250 yards shortage of weaponry. By this time, South- away, in either defense or offense. How- ern batteries might also have to do with ever, its effective firing range was nearly fewer soldiers because of a shortage of 2,000 yards. Moreover, the gun was easy men. For example, some four-gun batter- to reload, making it possible for a seven- ies had as few as forty-five men assigned man team to fire two rounds of ammuni- to them. tion per minute. That so many men were needed was due Artillery was also classified according to the teamwork required to fire each gun. to the trajectory its projectile followed af- The firing process for most artillery pieces ter firing. The three classifications were required one man to put a bag of gunpow- guns, howitzers, and mortars. Guns fired on der into the gun barrel, another to ram the a fairly straight trajectory. Howitzers, projectile into the barrel, another to put a 27 ARTISTS AND ARTWORK detonation device into the breech end of the Popular art was in great demand both gun, and another to ignite the detonation during and after the war, and public dis- device, using either a lit fuse or a wire run plays attracted large crowds. In 1865, for through the device to create a spark. Other example, hundreds of people lined up to men were needed to steady the teams of ar- see a portrait of Confederate general Robert tillery horses that hauled the weapons E. Lee painted by deaf artist Edward Cale- around while the gun was being fired, to don Bruce, which was on display at the prepare ammunition for each firing, and to Confederate capitol in Richmond, Virginia. clean the barrel of the gun after firing. See Other crowd-pleasers were large panoramic also ammunition; ordnance accidents. depictions of famous battles, some of which were painted by teams of artists artists and artwork working under a master who ensured a Artists created thousands of works depict- consistency of style in all sections of the ing the most important people, places, and work. events of the Civil War. War correspon- To feed the public’s demand for artwork, dents sketched scenes of battlefield action some companies specialized in turning and camp life that were then made into paintings into lithographic prints, which wooden engravings for printing in maga- people in both the North and the South pur- zines and newspapers, which at the time chased to decorate their homes, hotels, lacked the ability to reproduce pho- shops, workplaces, bars, and similar places. tographs. Meanwhile, painters produced Such companies might also commission artwork of popular subjects, such as por- artists to produce illustrations for repro- traits of Civil War heroes, that were put on duction. One of the most prominent popu- display and/or made into prints and sold to lar art publishers was Currier and Ives, es- the public. tablished in New York by lithographers Currier and Ives turned paintings of battle scenes into lithograph prints like this one for sale to the public..
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