Fort Wood in NY Harbor During the Civil War-- Part 1: Dating From the War of 1812

I have been writing a lot about this fort and its connection to the War of 1812 in my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog.  Today, I also posted about it in my Tattooed On Your Soul:  World War II and Cooter's History Thing blogs.  You can see what I wrote by clicking on My Blogs to the right of this.

Now Fort Wood serves as the base of the Statue of Liberty.

From Civil War Talk  Forgotten Forts.

Fort Wood was used intermittently from the War of 1812 to the Civil War.  And it wasn't always as a fort.  At times it was an ordnance depot for the harbor's defenses as well as an immigration station.

The fort was also updated to add more cannons.

--Old Secesh

World War II's Battery Farley Named for Union General Joseph Pearson Farley

As I said, I was writing about the 1900s Fort MacArthur protecting Los Angeles Harbor in California in my World War II blog's previous post.  One of its Coastal Defense batteries mounted two 14-inch guns called Battery Osgood-Farley.  I have already written about Henry Brown Osgood, who eventually rose to the rank of brigadier general in the post Civil War Army.

Battery Farley was named for Brigadier General Joseph Pearson Farley (1839-1912).  He was USMA Class of 1861 and served as ordnance officer at the Watertown Arsenal from 1861-1863 and proved more than 600 guns.

He distinguished himself afterwards in operations at Charleston, S.C., Morris Island and the bombardment of Fort Wagner.

After the war, he served in the ordnance department at various arsenals, including Rock island, Springfield, Kennebec and Frankford.

He is buried at West Point.

--Old Secesh

James Rifles

From Wikipedia.

James Rifles were the generic terms to describe any cannon rifled to the James Pattern.  Charles T. James developed a rifled projectile and rifling system.

James worked with the Ames Manufacturing Co. of Chicopee, Massachusetts, to produce 3.80" bore rifled cannons and there are at least six-known variants, collectively referred to as 14-pdr. James Rifles.

Some were converted 6-pdr. Model 1841 cannons which had their bores increased to 3.80" and the n riffled.  The other five variants were newly-cast cannons.

James projectiles were falling out of favor by the time of James' death in 1862 and most gradually phased out.

The More You Know.  --Old Secesh

Unearthed Civil War Shell Blown Up in Arkansas-- Part 2

And, remember, that if you ever found and old 150+ year-old shell from that long-ago war, handle with care, or better, don't handle at all.  According to the article, they have heard of 2-3 shells exploding after being found and someone was killed.

The shell was apparently live based on the way it blew up.  (And there it was bouncing around in the bed of the service truck.)  The Prairie Grove State Park is hopping mad about the shell's quick destruction.  They say that they've had live shells donated before and later had them disarmed in U.S. arsenals.

They actually have two of the James Rifle shells on display and eight in storage.  Each one is 9 inches long and 3.8 inches in diameter.

In 2004, two USMC ordnance disposal experts disarmed a rare Britten shell from the wreck of the CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France.

At the Battle of Prairie Grove, the Confederates had two cannons capable of firing a 14-pound James Rifle shell.  They were Union-made and had been captured at the Battle of Lone Jack, Missouri, in August 1862.  The Union Army had ten of the James Rifles at the  Battle of Prairie Grove.  These were the largest-diameter shells fired that day on either side.

Thousands of the shells were fired and their fragments are frequently found, but it is rare to find one intact.  This one was apparently dropped before firing or lost.

--Old Secesh

Unearthed Civil War Shell Blown Up in Arkansas-- Part 1

From the May 27, 2015, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Bill Bowden.

A photo of the 14-pound shell accompanies the article.

Prairie Grove, Ark.  A bomb squad and historians are at odds over the recent discovery of a 14-pound James Rifle shell unearthed earlier this month by a gas line crew working along Villines Road in Prairie Grove.  The shell was apparently left by Confederate troops during the Battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862.

It was tossed into the back of a service truck and rattled around there for a couple days before being turned over to the city of Prairie Grove which planned to donate it to the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park. Someone from the Bentonville (Ark.) Bomb Squad saw a post about it on Prairie Grove's Facebook page and they confiscated it May 13 and destroyed it that day by the military in a rock quarry near West Fork.

More to Come.  --Old Secesh

Submerged Civil War Relics Could Get a New Home-- Part 2

These 'sunken" weapons are still there. Divers occasionally look in the murky waters for items to sale and sometimes get arrested.

City councilman Greg Bjelke has gotten a $13,160 grant for Selma to study ways to protect the weapons above and below the water. Those recovered are sent to a museum.

Selma was a sleepy village before the war, but the Selma Ordnance and Naval Foundry (the CSS Tennessee was built here) grew to employ 10,000 workers producing pig-iron ingots from Alabama blast furnaces.

Union forces destroyed a million pounds of small arms, ammunition as well as 60,000 artillery shells and 15 siege guns. Another 8,000 pounds of horseshoes, five locomotives, 3 million feet of lumber and 10,000 bushels of coal also were destroyed.

--Old Secesh

150th Anniversary of Confederate Explosion in Richmond Is Marked

From the March 6, 2013, WTVP News.

A state historical marker will be put up March 13th near the James River site of the former Confederate Ordnance Lab in Richmond, Virginia.

The 1863 explosion killed at least 41 workers, including women and children.

It was sparked by worker Mary Ryan, who accidentally ignited a friction primer, killing the workers and horribly burning others.  Many of the workers were Irish immigrants or of Irish descent.

The Irish American Society will be at the ceremony.

The company was established to assemble cartridges and other ammunition.

Always a Dangerous Line of Work.  --Old Secesh

The Rafael Repeater-- Part 1

In my Civil War Navy blog, I wrote about President Lincoln going to the Washington Navy Yard this date to witness the testing of a new weapon on this date, August 7th, 1862, 150 years ago.  Secretaries Seward and Stanton accompanied him and Navy man Dahlgren ran the tests.

This was to be more of an Army weapon than Navy had if been put into production, so, I am writing about it in this blog.

I did some more research and in one place saw that the Rafael repeating cannon was impractical and did not see common use, but Lincoln was known for being very keen on mechanical marvels of any sort.

I found quite a bit of information in Wikipedia in a biography on James Richard Haskell.

His Connection Next.  --Old Secesh

Was It the First Cannonball Fired at Fort Sumter?

A very interesting entry in the Civil War Picket blog http://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com.

Perhaps, the cannonball sitting outside this Georgia courthouse was the first shot of the Civil War. Perhaps not.

At 4:30 am, April 12, 1861, 66 year-old Southern firebrand Edmund Ruffin fired the first shot of the Civil War. Captain G. B. Cuthbert of the Palmetto Guards wrote, "The first shell from Columbiad No. 1, fired by the venerable Ruffin burst directly upon the parapet of the southwest angle of the fort."

Sumter surrendered 34 hours later.

P.W. Alexander, a correspondent from Thomaston, Georgia was there and got out to the fort as soon as he could with intentions of finding Ruffin's shot. He found it, or what he thought may have been that first shot.

"The big ten-inch ball fell within Fort Sumter without doing any damage," reported the Thomaston Times. Alexander got it and sent it along to his friend B. B. White.

Today, about 800,000 a year visit Fort Sumter with far fewer going to the Upson County courthouse in Thomaston, Georgia, 300 miles from Charleston and 60 miles south of Atlanta.

I doubt that it was the first shell. Picking one specific shell from the many fired during the siege would be hard and plus Captain Cuthbert reported that it burst. The one in Georgia is in one piece.

Either way, it was at Fort Sumter during these early days of the war.

I have written about a Confederate cannon that is believed to have been at the Battle of Fort Sumter located in Galena, Illinois at Grant Park. Check out the Galena Blakely label.

Something to Check Out If I Ever get Down That Way. --Old B-Runner