The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Friday, April 10, 2009

CSS Neuse Getting Lincoln's Gun

The CSS Nuese II in Kinston, NC, is getting a fiberglass 6.4 inch Brooke Rifle from a place in Peoria in Lincoln's home state of Illinois.

Master boat builder Alton Stapleford will be building a rotating gun carriage for it. The Neuse used rotating gun carriages to fire from several ports on the original vessel.

It will cost between $20,000 and $30,000 to get the gun and carriage.

Members of the CSS Neuse Foundation will be picking it up from Great Guns Historical Cannons in Peoria to save $300 of the shipping cost for the 160-pound replica which originally weighed 10,600 pounds.

www.greatguns.org.

That replica of the Neuse in downtown Kinston, close to where the original was sunk is quite impressive and gives people a good idea what a Confederate Civil War ironclad looked like.

A Yankee Gun in a Rebel Boat? Now I've Seen Everything. --Old B-Runner