American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51150490@N05/

Is this a 12lb howitzer? Gun was used at Antietam.




Lt. Gen. D. Groce
Commander
V Corps AotP
"beyond our ideas of right and wrong there is a field, I will meet you there"
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It appears to be a 12 lber, but whether a howitzer or a Napoleon I couldn't say.

MG Mike Mihalik
2/4/I/AoMiss/CSA

It could be David. for some reason I can;t load the image, but go to http://antietam.aotw.org/images/howitzer_12.gif and you can see that the barrel is short and the normal angle of rest would allow for a higher trajectory, maybe more than what is shown in your picture.

Maj.Gen. Drex Ringbloom,
AotS Chief-of -Staff,
2nd Division Cmdr, "Corcoran's Legion", VIII Corps
Army of the Shenandoah

Thanks Drex, it is a howitzer, the Union had 3 and the South had 58 of these at Antietam from what I can determine from other sites.I know it is not a Napoleon as it was set up next to a row of those, a lot shorter and straight barrel.

Lt. Gen. D. Groce
Commander
V Corps AotP
"beyond our ideas of right and wrong there is a field, I will meet you there"

Yup! You're right! That straight, short barrel and wide mouth mark it as a pure howitzer, designed for lobbing shells at restricted range and close-in work. From everything I've read they're not the kind of gun you'd be too thrilled to assault up close, although these pieces were at a horribly distinct disadvantage in a counter-battery duel with rifled guns. At one time in the Western Theater both sides felt that mixed batteries were the way to go, although this was as much dictated by a shortage of good pieces as much as anything else. The Federal army that marched to Murfreesboro generally had six-gun batteries composed of a pair of long-range rifles, a pair of Napoleon gun-howitzers, which the gunners referred to as "Executive Pieces," if it could get them, and a pair of smoothbore howitzers. The different type sections were supposed to be able to provide the battery with the capability of engagement in almost any situation it happened upon. In truth it was both a headache for the Ordnance officers to keep the various ammunition types available for each battery and limited the weight of metal a single battery could provide.

General Jos. C. Meyer
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
Union Army Chief of Staff

<font color="beige"><b><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> Thanks Drex, it is a howitzer, the Union had 3 and the South had 58 of these at Antietam from what I can determine from other sites.I know it is not a Napoleon as it was set up next to a row of those, a lot shorter and straight barrel.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

After Antietam lot of the those Confederate howitzers were melted down and the bronze cast into the Confederate version of the Napoleon...a much more useful gun tube for about half again the amount of bronze.</b></font id="beige">

<center> <font color="beige"><b>General R.A.'Bob'Weir


</b></font id="beige"><font color="green"><b><font size="4">CSA Eastern Theater Commander</b></font id="size4"></font id="green">


</center>

Technically, I think, a 12lb Napoleon is a Howitzer. Or to be more exact it is a Gun Howitzer but I am not sure that means anything different. Being called a Napoleon is a little add on after Napoleon III made it the standard weapon for his armies. Or to quote:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The Model 1857 Gun Howitzer (Napoleon) was the most popular, common, and deadly field piece of the Civil War. The barrel was of bronze and smooth-bored designed originally in France. A Napoleon fired a 12.3 lb projectile and had a maximum effective range of about 1,600 yards. The barrel with its carriage weighed 2,445 pounds, light enough to be hauled by men for short distances, however, the usual method of transportation was by a six-horse team with a driver aside one of each pair of horses. Union Napoleons had a slight swell at the muzzle of the 4.62 inch bore.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Also a good description of the weapon and its variations from Wikipedia:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">By far the most popular of the smoothbore cannon was the 12-pounder Model of 1857, Light, commonly called "Napoleon". The Model 1857 was of lighter weight than the previous 12-pounder guns, and could be pulled by a six-horse draft, yet offered the heavier projectile payload of the larger bore. It is sometimes called, confusingly, a "gun-howitzer" (because it possessed characteristics of both gun and howitzer) and is discussed in more detail separately below...

The twelve-pound cannon "Napoleon" was the most popular smoothbore cannon used during the war. It was named after Napoleon III of France[8] and was widely admired because of its safety, reliability, and killing power, especially at close range. It did not reach America until 1857. It was the last cast bronze gun used by an American army. The Federal version of the Napoleon can be recognized by the flared front end of the barrel, called the muzzle-swell. Confederate Napoleons were produced in at least six variations, most of which had straight muzzles, but at least eight catalogued survivors of 133 identified have muzzle swells. Additionally, four iron Confederate Napoleons produced by Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond have been identified, of an estimated 125 cast.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)