The Swamp Angel. 200 pound Parrot Rifle

In the summer of 1863 Maj Gen Quincy Gilmore was in charge of Union operations against Charleston Harbor in South Carolina.
The Yankees had been working on Charleston for some time, but had had very little success. Gilmore asked Col Edward Serell to probe the marsh between James Island and Morris Island. Gilmore had the idea of setting up a heavy battery to bring Ft Sumter under fire.
The story goes that Col Serell ordered a young engineer lieutenant to check out the marsh, and requisition whatever he needed to do the job. After a day or two stumbling around the swamp, the lieutenant requisitioned "20 men, 18 feet tall, to work in mud 15 feet deep"!
Anyway, Serell failed to see the humor in that. He dismissed the young officer, and spent nearly 3 weeks checking out the marsh himself with a 30' iron rod 3/4" thick to take some soundings of the soil.
Once he'd accomplished his research, he put the engineers to work constructing a gun emplacement.
They ran pilings down through the mud to the sand underneath. Teams of men worried them in with great big levers with a team on each end. Then they pounded them to seat with big wooden mauls.
Once they had the base pilings in a 3 sided square, they commenced building a parapet with 13000 sandbags, carried by hand on planks over the mud. The trip was 17000 yards, one way. Occasionally, Rebel gunners played long range target games with heavy mortars.
Once the open sided parapet was done, it was time to build the platform for the gun itself. This was done by way of cribbage on top of the mud inside the open parapet, made of grass, sand, tarps and planks. Layer after layer was added until the platform could support a load of over 650 pounds per square foot..
To be continued
PTRN