Columbiads

Well I just re-read this before posting it and it seems rather
nit-picking,
but here goes anyway...

" Most of the 8 - 15 inch artilery (smooth bore in Union use in the
civil war period) were Dahlgrens"

Those used by the navy, yes. Those used by the Army were of a different design
and refered to as "Rodman" guns after their designer (A handful of
Rodmans even went as high as 20 inches).  The principle was the same - a
more or less "coke-bottle" shape reflecting one of the first practical
application of physics and advanced metalurgy techniques to cannon design.

"A smoothbore wit reinforced breech to resist bursting"

 - more or less.  The "reinforcement" was part of the original casting
unlike a parrot rifle whose breech reinforcement was an additional band of
metal, added red hot and then quenched with water to shrink it on

"which is a hoot, since at one of the gun's inaugral test shootings a breech
explosion killed the then Secretary of War"

-  That incident, aboard the USS Princeton, circa 1840, was of a very
large
cannn dubbed the "Peacemaker" by the press - not sure if it bore any
resemblence to later Columbiads. Oh and it also killed the Sec. of the NAvy
and, I believe, injured the Vice Pres. as well.

"You will actually find Columbiad guns emplaced on smaller naval vessels prior
to the War of 1812"

 - Are you sure you don't mean Carronades, which are something
completely different.

""Napoleon" a 12 pdr smooth bore field piece. It was a design built long after
it's name sake was laid to rest"

I believe the name comes from Napoleon's particular fondness for guns of this
caliber, a battery of which were attached to each Corps of le Grande
Armie.  The Guards Corps had a quadruple dose - four batteries of
12-pounders at Waterloo.  Their massed fire routed a Dutch-Belgian
brigade at the start of the battle and also slowly destroyed the Inniskillings
Regiment formed in a square, throughout the afternoon under the mass fire of
the entire "Grand Battery", they stood their ground with typical Irish pluck
bringing the wounded to the center and tossing the dead outside as the square
shrank smaller and smaller (in all 450 of 750 were casualties, including 17
out of the 18 officers).

> In a message dated 7/25/99 10:47:48 PM EST, edens@mindspring.com writes:

<< "You will actually find Columbiad guns emplaced on smaller naval vessels
prior to the War of 1812"

  - Are you sure you don't mean Carronades, which are something
completely different. >>

I'm aware of the difference. The Carronade was becoming common on British
naval vessels by the end of the French and Indian Wars, during the AWI it was
one of the major advantages the Brits had over French vessels of similar

size. The carronade included guns up to 68 pound bore (the "smasher"
gun).
The Columbiad was developed by the US as a compromise piece between carronade
and long gun. If it wasn't an American innovation why refer to "Columbia" an
alter ego for the Americas.