From the May-June Confederate Veteran Magazine.
I'd never heard of a Confederate Williams gun, but there in the photo section on page 39, there was a photo of one. One mighty strange-looking cannon. The caption read:
Members of Schoolfield's Battery from the Myers-Zollicoffer Camp 1990, Livingston, Tn, man their Williams gun at the dedication of the Tennessee Civil War Trails monument for the "Affair of Cumberland Mountain," located in Pleasant Hill, Tennessee.
Wikipedia had this to say about the gun. It was classified as a 1-lb. cannon and designed by D.R. Williams of Covington, Kentucky. They were breech-loading, rapid-fire cannons operated by a hand-turned crank. The barrel was 4 feet long, 1.57 inch caliber.
Approximately 40 were made at three places in Virgina and Alabama and sent to seven different Confederate batteries. Four were captured at the end of the war and sent to West Point, where one was retained and the others sent elsewhere. Examples of the Williams Gun are located in two other places.
It was not considered to be very effective.
Never Heard of It. --Old B-Runner
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