The Swamp Angel. 200 pound Parrot Rifle

Col Serrell was born in London England in 1825. He emigrated to the U.S. With his family as a youngster. Raised in New York, young Serrell learned engineering from his dad and older brother. When war came in 1861, Serrell was working as an engineer for the Erie Railroad, laying road beds and building bridges.
He volunteered and raised a regiment, the 1rst NY Volunteer Engineer Regiment. They were attached to the Union Army 10th corps, and sent to Charleston.
After more than a month of ball busting work in the suckmud and skeeters, the engineers and regular grunt soldiers had their emplacement ready for the gun. An 8" Parrot Rifle was brought out on consecutive nights, first the 4 ton carriage was placed, followed the next night by the over 8 ton tube.
A while back we had a thread about the Parrot Rifles. Invented by a Fellow named Robert Parrot, the guns had a cast iron tube. Cast iron is brittle, and prone to burst, so a wrought iron reinforcing band was shrunk over the breech end to help withstand the explosive pressure.
The guns still burst, usually in front of the band, injuring the gunners. Gen Henry Hunt, chief of the artillery in the Union Army of the Patomac, was busy trying to phase them out of field artillery, but the guns were accurate and cheap. So what if they occasionally killed a gunner or two?
Anyway the heavy siege guns and naval guns, along with the 10 and 20 pound field guns, served through out the war.
So Gilmore finally got his big gun, an 8" Parrot set up in the swamp
PTRN

On 21 August, the gun was finally in place, and everything set to go.
As I said in the original post, Gilmore's idea was to use the thing to batter Ft Sumter. At least that was the story.
But, somewhere in the month's time it took to get it set up, priorities got changed.
Using military force against a civilian target was supposedly forbidden. I don't know where, but somehow the Federal hi command decided that the Town of Charleston itself was a legitimate target after all.
Actually their thinking isn't as far outside the mark as it seems at first look. Without the town supplying them, the forts protecting the harbor could not stand. Every morsel of food, every pound of powder in them came through Charleston, either by ground transport or by way of the wharfs.
On top of this, the northern people remembered that Charleston was the town where the act of secession originated. You'd have probably been hard pressed to find a lot of Yankees that wouldn't want to see it raised and the ground salted.
Furthermore, let's not forget that just a few days before this, a confederate Colonel by the name of Quantrel had sacked and burned the town of Lawrence KS. The raiders under Quantrel killed every male (military or no) over age 14 they could get their hands on. In front of wives and mothers.
I'm no apologist, but I can understand where the idea of using artillery on Charleston may have come from.
Be that as it may, on the afternoon of the 21rst, General Gilmore sent a message warning General Beauregard of the impending bombardment, and requesting the fort's surrender or the city be evacuated. Beauregard was not there, and since the note was not signed, it was sent back for verification.
PTRN

The detachment serving the gun was made up from the 11th Maine Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Charles Sellmer.
I know a gun crew of field artillery used 9 or 10 individuals per gun. I got no idea, I'd guess 15 or 20 for this monster. And why anyone would make up a gun crew out of infantry is above my pay grade as well. Remember, this is an 8 in diameter bore, eleven feet long, packed with 16 pounds of powder behind a 200 pound shell!
Lieutenant Sellmer, at least, had had training as a gunner at some point in his career. The rest of the men, who knows?
At 1:30 am of the 22nd, the sent their first one on its way. During the afternoon they had taken a compass bearing using the steeple of St Micheal's Church in Charleston as a reference point.
IIRC, it took 15 seconds, maybe more (I'd have to look it up) for the 200 pound shell to cover the 7900 yards to the city. When it hit, all hell broke loose! The men in the crew could hear fire bells ringing, and a reporter in a Charleston hotel described people running everywhere, quite a few naked as the day they were born.
By dawn, they had fired 16 shells, 14 or 15 of them filled with an incendiary called "Greek Fire", into the city.

The next morning Gilmore sent another note to Beauregard, signed this time.
Beauregard's reply was understandably hot, calling the shelling of a civilian city "barbaric", and "an act of desperation". The rebels tried responding with their big mortars, but the fuses were cut long. The shells buried themselves in the mud, exploding harmlessly.
The next night, the shelling resumed.
The first 6 went off alright, but some of the shells were detonating inside the tube. After the 6th shot, the gunner called out "Sir, I can't get the priming wire down"!
A quick examination showed that the cast iron barrel had shifted inside the wrought iron reinforcing band. In spite of this, they were still able to fire the cannon.
Lieutenant Sellmer decided to keep firing the gun, regardless of the fact that it was likely to burst any minute. With all the work involved getting the damn thing set up, they might as well make use of it as long as possible.
Sellmer told his men to take cover away from the gun, outside the sandbags that formed the walls of the battery. The gunner tied two lanyards together so he could stand outside as well.
Serving the gun and working in this manner, the crew, led by Lieutenant Sellmer ran another 12 shots. As the twelfth round was pushed down the tube Lieutenant Sellmer stepped outside the parapet, a little left of the muzzle. It was his intention to time the crew at loading, and he would be able to read his watch by the flash of the gun.
When the gunner pulled the lanyard, all hell broke loose.
As I said, Parrots were prone to split due to the brittleness of cast iron. Usually they'd burst just in front of the wrought iron reinforcing band near the trunnions. This one didn't. The barrel split inside of the band, at or near the vent where the priming tube was to be inserted.
The forward 3/4s of the tube launched forward, breaking loose from the carriage, landing on top of the sandbag parapet. The reinforcing band, with the breach of the barrel inside, was blown to the rear of the emplacement.
Sellmer suffered a burst eardrum and had his hair, eyebrows and facial hair badly singed. Three other crew members were injured as well.
The Swamp Angel's reign of terror was over.

Once the ordinance officers had studied the failure, and the interested gawkers had examined the destruction, what was left of the gun was shipped north for scrap.
Charles Carr, of the Pheonix Ironworks in Trenton NJ bought it to be recycled. While it was waiting for the smelter, someone recognized the gun and its historical significance.
Carr saved the tube itself, but the band was lost. The tube was welded together, and set up as a memorial at the intersection of two Trenton streets. In 1961, it was moved to Caldwalader Park in Trenton. Some jackass stole the original bronze plaque, so it was replaced with a new one, and the gun/monument was rededicated on the 150th anniversary of her service in 2013.
The are no recorded injuries suffered by the people of Charleston. Other than the panic and terrori it brought to the city, no harm was done.
Charleston was never taken from the sea. It was evacuated of confederate pplforces after Sherman cut her off from the landward side.

All the preceding post were originally posted by myself on a different website a few years ago.
They were condensed from a series of blogs from another site that was titled “To The Sound Of The Guns”, which was set up by a fellow named Craig Swain.
That website was taken down a few years ago. A shame because there was a lot of information from several years of work.

Craig has recently started another blog site which seems to have many of the older stuff in the archives.
The title of the new site is Edit [Moderator]: Link removed

Hoping that this series of post will lead to a discussion. If not, I hope at least a few folks have enjoyed the story and will preserve the history of the original story from the War Between the States.
PTRN

I enjoyed the story, but as someone pointed out to you in another thread, things are slow around this site so don't expect much of a discussion about military history.

Aside from the fact that I now believe every firearm ought to be confiscated, melted down, and the molten remains poured back into the earth, I do find guns interesting. I own a few myself, although it's been a long time since any of them have been fired. My military MOS was artillery and I was assigned to a howitzer battery in Vietnam. Due to some changes in the status of our unit due to an administrative reclassification, I ended up spending most of my time there as a cook. But manning those howitzers was quite an experience! I never got near the 8" guns or the 175's, though.

I recently learned about the Whitworth rifles, which were used by Confederate snipers with lethal effect. At the Battle of Spotsylvania, the Union Major General John Sedgwick was directing artillery fire as Confederate bullets whizzed around him. His last words were, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!” Immediately after this he was shot through the head by a round from one of the Whitworths. These muzzle-loaders had a hexagonal bore with a tight one-in-twenty twist and fired a six-sided bullet. The bullets caused a distinctive whistle which added to the fear of those under fire. The effective range was 800-1000 yards with a maximum range of 2000 yards.

Well heck. If you liked it, that’s all I was aiming for!😎
I just think it’s a very interesting story. Especially how the primary target got changed from Ft Sumter to the civilian city itself.
My own interest is in the gun itself.
As a fellow who loads his own ammunition, I find the comparison interesting.
You have your own opinions on guns just as I have mine.
I won’t try to convert you, if you agree not to try to convert me.
What if we each invite a friend into this conversation?
I really like to get discussions going. I find that I usually learn from others input.
I think my nephew could learn a lot, and probably add his own insights.
I’ll invite him, and you invite one of your friends.
PTRN

In a grown-up discussion participants ought to be able to express contentious opinions without proselytizing.


Assuming I have any!

There used to be some people here who could play in this ballgame but I can't think of any presently active members who'd be that interested. If I think of someone I'll send them a link.

Joseph Whitworth was the guy responsible for those rifles and the 12 pound guns.
Both had a hexagonal bore which offered a mechanical fit, as opposed to the round type that we’re accustomed to.
Joe Whitworth is also the fellow who developed the threads and pitch that were used in screws and nuts and bolts. Pretty much everything that holds the modern world together.
https://youtu.be/CqVxJh0X8bY
Forgive me. I ain’t figured out how to embed a video yet.
If you visit Gettysburg, on Oak Hill near the Peace Light, you’ll see two of those 12 pounders. The Confederates snuck them through the blockade.
Both armies used them. Their range was much greater than our own guns.
PTRN

The 19th Century was a great time to be a scientist, or more specifically, an engineer.