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7. Cannon for the South
At the beginning “The day before I received orders to demand the surrender of
Fort Sumter a vessel arrived from England with a small Blakely rifled-gun ... I placed it at once behind a sand-bag parapet… where it did opportune service with its ten-pound shell…” General P G T Beauregard, CSA. Commanding at Charleston, SC, April 1861 At the end “I have the honor to make the following report of artillery … received by the ordnance department, captured from and surrendered by the enemy in the recent campaign… one 3½ inch Blakely cannon.” Lieutenant F H Parker, Chief Ordnance Officer, US Army of the Potomac, Appomattox, May 31 1865
The first Blakely rifled gun sent to the South The 3¾ inch piece used to fire on Sumter in April 1861 Here seen today preserved at Galena, Illinois Picture courtesy William J Manon Blakely Cannon in the Confederate States Army “We have a remarkable rifled cannon, a 12 pounder, superior to any other here. Others ought to be ordered,” wrote General P G T Beauregard to Secretary of War L P Walker on April 15, 1861. The history and a description of this “remarkable rifled cannon” have been given here in First Manufacture. Despite its immediate success and this full-blooded endorsement it is strange to have to say that even an approximation of the number or the types of Blakely cannon imported and utilised by the Army of the Confederate States of America is impossible to reckon. It may be a surprise to many to know that the Confederate States of America imported relatively few pieces of ordnance for either its navy or its army. After the first twelve months of war it was virtually self-sufficient in manufacturing cannon, whether at the Tredegar works in Richmond, Virginia, or at the Selma works in Alabama.
By July 12, 1862, Colonel Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance of the Army, was writing to G W Randolph, the Secretary of War, “direct him (Caleb Huse in Europe) to make no more purchases of arms beyond that already made and contracted for... I have already instructed him that artillery is of secondary importance unless of special character”. From then on the Confederate States needed only to import strategic raw materials, such as lead for Minié bullets and saltpetre for making gun powder. Rather than guns it was clothing, blankets, cloth and shoes that had priority. By the middle of 1864 clothing and provisions for the army were the main imports.
On February 3, 1863 Colonel Gorgas reported that just 129 pieces of artillery had been imported into the South on behalf of the Bureau of Ordnance. This contrasts with the 130,230 stand of infantry rifled weapons that Huse had sent from Europe. Scarcely any cannon were imported on government account after that date.
The Official Records of the American War show these few entries regarding the import of cannon:
a] On August 11, 1861 Caleb Huse writing from England reported to the Secretary of War in Richmond that he had shipped to the south twelve 12 pounder light Blakely guns with solid shot and segment shell.
b] However, Judah Benjamin, then Secretary of War, appealed to President Davis on March 4, 1862 for funds for 500 Blakely guns as part of the “additional measures required in the present year” requested by the Confederate Congress.
c] Colonel Josiah Gorgas reported to the Secretary of War that the following ordnance had been brought from Europe by February 1863 on government account to supplement home manufacture:
● 54 six-pounder bronze smoothbore guns ● 18 bronze smoothbore howitzers ● 6 twelve-pounder rifled iron guns ● 2 iron howitzers with carriages and caissons ● 6 6 3/10 inch Blakely rifled cannon with 1,800 shells and 2,000 fuses* ● 3 8-inch Blakely rifled cannon with 680 shells ● 12 twelve-pounder steel rifled guns with shot and shell* ● 32 Austrian bronze rifled guns with caissons and 10,000 shrapnel shells with fuses ● 2 bronze rifled guns with 200 shells and fuses and 756 shrapnel shells ● 4 nine-pounder steel rifled cannon with 1,008 shells and fuses *
The list admits just nine Blakely guns then on hand. The descriptive parts of the invoices for the shipments marked with an * asterisk are detailed in the First Manufacture chapter.
d] On November 15, 1863 Colonel Josiah Gorgas recorded as additional imports for the War Department just three 8 inch Blakely rifles and the two 13 inch great guns.
Given the number of “survivors” still in existence, thirty-two pieces, this cannot represent the true state of affairs; some of the unclassified “steel” imports in the February 1863 list are likely to have been to Blakely’s patent. Others will have been imported on State rather than War Department account. From the Official Reports, extracts of which are included later, it is clear that the State of South Carolina, under the influence of one of its leading sons, General Wade Hampton, imported a great many Blakely guns for its artillery. Wade Hampton had no military training but proved to be one of the most vigorous and steadiest of Generals in the Confederate States Army. A man of great wealth, he became a Colonel of Militia in South Carolina in 1861 and created his own military formation of volunteers.
The Hampton Legion was formed on June 12, 1861 at Columbia, South Carolina. It comprised six companies of infantry, four troops of cavalry and one battery of light artillery. It originally had a strength of about 1,000 men. Their military equipment was bought personally by Wade Hampton, and consisted, in addition to locally bought arms, of 400 Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle muskets and four 3½ inch Blakely rifled cannon, all acquired in England. The battery of Blakely guns was delivered at Savannah, Georgia, by the blockade-running steamer Bermuda in September 1861. They were issued to the Washington Artillery of the Hampton Legion on October 21, 1861.
The “legion” was a rather archaic construct from the eighteenth century, just slightly larger than a regiment in numbers. It was customary in the age of mass warfare to have the infantry, cavalry and artillery organised in much larger independent units rather than combined in such a small mixed formation. However the “legion” gave its senior officer the pleasing effect of commanding an army in miniature.
After a brilliant if bloody debut at the Battle of Manassas, literally alongside of Colonel T J Jackson’s Virginian regiment, the Hampton Legion was reconstructed and divided. The infantry retained the title of the Hampton Legion; the horsed troops became the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry Regiment. The Legion’s ordnance became Captain James Franklin Hart’s Washington (South Carolina) Battery, and, still working its four 3½ inch Blakely guns, attached to cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. After the success at Manassas, in September 1861 a second battery had been raised for the Hampton Legion from Charleston; this became Captain William K Bachman’s German Artillery. It, too, was equipped with 3½ inch Blakely rifled guns, for service in Virginia.
Wade Hampton was promoted from Colonel to Brigadier-General, and went on to lead ever larger units of cavalry. It is said that he paid eventually for the import of eight Blakely field guns. The abolitionist navy reported that the blockade runner Scotia had run into Charleston, South Carolina, on August 23, 1862 carrying 48 pieces of artillery. This cargo included 40 Blakely 12 pounder field guns, “with carriages, harness and ammunition for the same.” No imports of Blakely cannon for the Confederate States Army are recorded after the end of 1863.
It should be said that there is no evidence that the Confederate States Navy ever imported Blakely guns, they used the Brooke gun, on a Blakely model. The Navy purchased several large pieces but only for use on its foreign-built ships. That is not to say, of course, that sailors did not serve with army batteries, particularly in coastal or riverine defence.  Old Soldiers at Rest Usually described as Blakely field guns in Charleston Arsenal late in 1865 Two are probably 6 pounder Wiard guns, lately prisoners-of-war The Confederate States’ Army issued its first Field Manual for Ordnance Officers in 1862. It referred to three patterns of Blakely ordnance in their service: ● 7.44 inch with a 2.75 pounds shell bursting charge and a 12 pounds propellant charge ● 3.5 inch with a 0.12 pounds shell bursting charge and a 1.25 pounds propellant charge ● 2.9 inch with a 0.12 pounds shell bursting charge and a 0.5 pounds propellant charge The 120 pounder: or 7½ inch, the largest piece of ordnance then in army service, was the pattern commonly called the “Low Moor” conversion of the British 48 pounder smooth-bore into a heavy rifled piece under Captain Blakely’s patents; with a single band of steel or wrought-iron strengthening the breech. ● Details: 7.5 inch bore, firing a 120 pound bolt, 124 inch barrel length overall, 6,500 pound weight, 12 groove right hand twist rifling This large piece is more fully described here in the later section headed The Guns. 
3½ inch or 12 pounder Blakely “Confederate” rifled field gun 1861 A fine view of the barrel-form unique to the southern armies This piece is on a museum mount in Mississippi A Warren Ripley Picture The 12 pounder; or 3½ inch Blakely rifle, also known as the “three- fifty”, was the modern equivalent of the 12 pounder “Napoleon” smoothbore field piece that accompanied the army into action. This was the commonest piece of imported ordnance used by, and was unique to, the Confederate States. It possessed a cast-iron barrel, 60 inches in length, weighing 600 pounds, with a breech jacket in “steel”, or, more accurately, wrought-iron, and a flush-fitting trunnion ring. It was shorter and lighter than the comparable smooth-bore ordnance, requiring a stronger carriage, but had a far greater range.
In addition, at least one battery of “full size” 3.5 inch Blakely rifles was provided in 1862, having a heavier and longer 66 inch sleeved barrel, with the latest 6 groove ratchet rifling, and notably without a cascabel knob at the breech.
Originally rifled on Royal Navy Commander R A E Scott’s principle with six or seven “centrical” grooves, from 1862 the 3.5 inch guns had six of Blakely’s patented “ratchet” grooves (also used by Commander J M Brooke of the Confederate States Navy). All of these field pieces commonly fired Bashley Britten’s patent projectiles. These cannon, though not their projectiles, were chiefly, if not entirely, manufactured for the Confederacy by Fawcett, Preston & Company of Liverpool. At least eight batteries of four 3.5 inch Blakely pieces had been provided to the south by 1862.
In Confederate service the 3.5 inch gun, due to its lightness and short barrel, was generally used to accompany cavalry. The use of the long version is not recorded; it may have been confined to coastal defence due to its weight. ● Details: 3.5 inch bore, firing a 12 pound bolt, 60 inch barrel length overall, breech sleeve, 600 pound weight, 7 groove right hand twist rifling, Fawcett, Preston, maker (also 66 inch barrelled) ● Details: 3.5 inch bore, firing a 12 pound bolt, 60 inch barrel length, breech band, 6 groove right hand twist rifling, Forrester, maker  3 inch or 9 pounder Blakely cavalry or mountain gun 1861 One of two at Washington Navy Yard on museum mountings It is to Blakely’s “standard” design for small ordnance A Warren Ripley Picture The 9 pounder; or 2.9 inch (actually made as a 3 inch) rifle is a rare piece of artillery in Confederate service. It was constructed by Fawcett Preston and later by the Blakely Ordnance Company at the Bear Lane gun manufactory in Southwark. From its size it would have been either a cavalry gun or a mountain gun. It was not built on the same principle as the short 3½ inch “Confederate” field gun but had a slim jacket and a very large cast-iron trunnion ring. The two remaining Confederate survivors are remarkably similar to their 9 pounder relatives in Peru.
● Details: 2.9 inch (3 inch) bore, firing a 9 pound bolt, 36 inch barrel length overall, six-groove, Scott triangular rifling
Other 2.9 inch Blakely rifle guns were apparently made for the Confederate States Navy or for privateers of small tonnage, much longer and with a breech ring. None seem to have got through the blockade.
Blakely Guns in 1864: On January 20, 1864 the Bureau of Ordnance of the Confederate States Army listed bolts, shells, canister and charges available for the following Blakely guns:
● 7.44 inch ● 4.5 inch, 20 pounder ● 3.75 inch, 16 pounder ● 3.5 inch, 12 pounder
The Blakely 7½ inch Low Moor guns and the 12 pounders had it seems been reinforced with two new types of Blakely heavy field artillery since 1862. The small 2.9 inch cavalry or mountain pieces were no longer provided for.
● Details: 4.5 inch bore, firing a 20 pound bolt, 96 inch barrel length overall, 7 groove right hand twist rifling, breech sleeve, Fawcett, Preston, maker ● Details: 4.5 inch bore, firing a 20 pound bolt, as above except a breech band rather than sleeve, Forrester, maker ● Details: 3.75 inch bore, firing a 16 pound shot, 83 inch barrel length overall, 6 groove right-hand twist rifling, breech sleeve, Forrester maker. There was, it seems, just one of these cannon, which was used to fire on Sumter in 1861. 
Britten Patent Shell 1861 A lead skirt applied to the iron shell body with molten zinc The commonest projectile used with Blakely field guns, a shell not a shot Ammunition: The Blakely rifled field guns used by the south were all designed to use the patented shell design of Bashley Britten, made for him by Maudslay, Sons & Field in London. This had a lead flange or skirt sweated onto the base of the hollow iron body of the projectile, which was forced into the rifling on firing. These shells, and their patent metallic fuses, were imported from England. Attempts to manufacture Britten shells in America all failed as the process was complex. 
Read Patent Shell 1861 A wrought-iron base cup cast into the body of the projectile Made at Richmond as a substitute for the imported Bashley Britten shell
Instead the Richmond Arsenal began making John B Read’s shell in 3½ inch Blakely calibre. This had been patented in 1856 and had a wrought-iron cup inserted into the “butt” (as the patentee put it) of a cast-iron shell when still molten to act in the same manner as Britten’s lead skirt. Read was an Alabamian and had licensed his design to the cannon founder Robert Parrott prior to 1861. The unprincipled Parrott immediately found ways to avoid paying royalties to Read, just as he had pirated Blakely’s banding concept.
The Read patent shell was cast in several calibres at Richmond for field ordnance, as well as for the Blakely guns. They used older wooden time fuses rather than patent metallic ones. Incidentally, guns captured by the enemy or seized by them at sea whilst running the blockade were provided with projectiles made to Hotchkiss’s patent, in 3½ inch and 3 inch (2.9 inch) Blakely calibre. Blakely Guns in Service: There were serious problems in obtaining munitions for the army’s Blakely guns. The battery with the Army of Tennessee reported curtly that domestic-made “Blakely ammunition defective. Shells imperfect in casting. The 12 pounder shell is too heavy, weighing 16 pounds”. A year earlier, in March 1863, in the Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E Lee informed the cavalry General Wade Hampton, “We shall be obliged to rely on imported ammunition for the use of the Blakely guns, as its manufacture requires so much expense and time as to prevent its preparation at our arsenals, and, in addition, it consumes so much lead...” The Confederate army was then still using Bashley Britten’s patent shell with a lead skirt at the base to grip the bore.
There were seven Blakely field pieces accompanying the Army of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg on September 17, 1862, two with Captain J B Brockenbrough’s Baltimore (Maryland) Battery.
In Virginia, the most famous of the army Blakely’s were in Preston Chew’s (Virginia) Battery with General T J Jackson’s corps in the Valley of the Shenandoah; and in John Pelham’s Battery with General J E B Stuart’s cavalry corps. Both were light artillery, and equipped with a single 3.5 inch field gun among their other pieces.
The largest unit of Blakely field guns was Hart’s Washington (South Carolina) Battery, commanded by Captain James F Hart, accompanying General Wade Hampton’s cavalry brigade. This had a full complement of four 3.5 inch Blakely field guns in 1862. Captain Hiram Miller Bledsoe’s 1st Missouri Battery in the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana possessed two 3.5 inch Blakely guns in the summer of 1863. Sam C Mitchell, a private in Company A, 3rd Tennessee Infantry, at the battle of Port Hudson, Louisiana, in May and July 1863 recalled twenty-four years later, “In the meantime Farragut had carried the [USS] Hartford below our batteries and occasionally would steam up in range and exchange shot with Capt Bledsoe who had two Blakely steel rifled cannons at the lowest battery. I remember one evening one of the gunboats came around the point and threw two shells up the river aimed at a little steamboat at the landing. Capt Bledsoe answered with his two guns and the sides of the gunboat looked like a streak of lightning had struck her. She floated down the river utterly helpless. I heard it said afterwards that if Capt B had had these two guns the night of the first assault he would have sunk the whole fleet.” In his 1866 article, Confederate Artillery Service, General E P Alexander, late Chief of Artillery of Longstreet’s Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia, gave his blunt, and no doubt wholly accurate, opinion regarding the 3½ inch field guns used by the cavalry, “The Blakely guns were twelve-pounder rifles, muzzle-loaders, and fired very well with English ammunition (‘built-up’ shells with leaden bases [i.e. Bashley Britten’s]), but with the Confederate substitute, they experienced the same difficulties which attended this ammunition in all guns. The only advantage to be claimed for this gun is its lightness, but this was found to involve the very serious evil that no field-carriage could be made to withstand its recoil. It was continually splitting the trails or racking to pieces its carriages, though made of unusual strength and weight.”
“The third fort commands the river in all directions. It mounted one splendid Blakely 100 pounder”
Rear-Admiral David D Porter, US Navy, Commanding Mississippi Squadron, to Gideon Welles, May 3, 1863, on examining the Confederate works at Grand Gulf
During the siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi river, the turning point of the American War, between May 25 and July 4, 1863, Lieutenant A L Slack’s detachment, Company C of the 1st Louisiana Heavy Artillery Regiment, served the famous 7½ inch Blakely cannon known as the “Widow Blakely”. The “Widow” survived the conflict and, after a long period in enemy custody, returned to Vicksburg.
From 1863 the earthworks of Fort Fisher, defending the vital port of Wilmington, North Carolina, had an 8 inch cast-iron, steel-banded Blakely rifle in its North East Bastion. It had three groove rifling to Scott’s “centrical” pattern, throwing flanged iron bolts up to 130 pounds weight. According to John Randolph Hamilton (late Captain, CSN and former Secretary of the Blakely Ordnance Company) speaking at the Royal United Service Institution in London on June 1, 1868, “The Federal and Confederate reports agree in stating, that this gun was the most efficient of the armament of the fort brought into action. It was taken, marked by the enemy’s shot, and stained with the blood of its cannoniers.”
Its twin was located, in that year, at Battery Wagner defending the entrance to the harbour at Charleston. It is claimed that it was a Bessemer spherical steel shot of the 8 inch Blakely gun at Wagner that pierced and sank the ironclad USS Keokuk.
The field guns of the Confederate States Army were organised in batteries of four or six guns, commanded by a captain of artillery, with detachments of two guns under a lieutenant. They were not numbered but were all named after their commanding officer. The title of the battery could alter as the commander changed or was killed. Batteries also were given names of honour by the states from which they were raised.
“If my little Blakely were here, these people should not escape.”
Colonel Turner Ashby, 7th Virginia Cavalry, as the enemy retreated at Front Royal, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, May 23, 1862
3½ inch or 12 pounder Blakely rifled gun 1861 This has the slender steel breech-sleeve and massive cast-iron trunnion ring of its shorter sisters in Peruvian service The following are extracts from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, which mention Captain Blakely’s cannon. The size and other descriptions of the pieces are transcribed “as is” from the original: [The reader is referred to the end of the Sources section for an attempt to explain the “calibre” issue]
There were two 24 pounder or 4.5 inch Blakely guns at Fort Pulaski, off Savannah, Georgia, on April 14, 1861, before it fell into abolitionist hands.
During the Seven Days Battle, it was reported on June 28, 1862 that Major Charles Richardson’s Battery deployed two “immense” 4.62 inch Blakely’s, each weighing 4,000 pounds, in an independent detachment under Captain Masters.
At Manassas, as reported on August 25, 1862, the Washington (Louisiana) Artillery under Captain Victor Maurins possessed two 3.5 inch Blakely field guns. The Blakely detachment was led by Lieutenant R P Landry.
On March 7, 1863, Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, a South Carolinian, commanding the cavalry brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia wrote to General Lee reminding him that he was responsible for the import of the Blakely field guns. He requested that they all be consolidated under one command, in his cavalry. General Lee in polite response explained that the batteries of artillery in the brigades were being consolidated into battalions under division and corps command, and that the Blakely guns were spread among several corps. He also addressed the immense problems of sourcing effective ammunition, as domestic manufacture could not match the quality of the original imports. However, Lee observed that Hampton deserved the thanks of the nation for importing the Blakelys.
At Jacksonville, Florida, the army in March 1863 had assembled the “dreaded locomotive battery” to shell the occupying force. This consisted of a 4.5 inch Blakely gun mounted on a railroad truck, hauled by its own engine. Its lone effort threw 64 pound bolts and explosive shells into the defenders’ earthworks out of range of reprisal, counter-battery, fire. At Savannah, Georgia, on March 31, 1863, Fort Cheves on the Savannah river possessed two 24 pounder Blakely guns. At that time the George Siege Artillery, of Major Buist, carried two 4 inch Blakelys in its train, along with four 8 inch howitzers, in that city. On April 23, 1863, three “splendid” 8 inch Blakely rifles, able to fire 130 pound bolts, arrived on the blockade runner Merrimac at the port of Wilmington, North Carolina. Two were to be retained to defend Wilmington, one at Fort Caswell and one at Fort Fisher. The other was shipped “to the Mississippi”.
The Ordnance Department for South Carolina, Georgia and Florida listed on April 24, 1863, among its 113 pieces of artillery: three 24 pounder Blakelys, six 6 pounder Blakelys (3.5 inch bore, firing 12 pound shot), four 6 pounder Blakelys (3.5 inch bore), and four 4 pounder Blakelys (2.35 or 2.4 inch bore). This list, with its unusual calibration, was compiled by the Chief of Artillery of the Department in Charleston. On April 1, 1864 Captain Richard Henry Bellamy’s Alabama Battery was attached to the reserve of the Army of Tennessee, it comprised two 2.5 inch, 6 pounder rifles and two 3.5 inch, 12 pounder Blakelys. This is the only note of Blakely field guns in Confederate service in the West.
It was reported, in the Military District of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida that, on May 3, 1864, the Waccamaw Light Artillery, Captain Joshua Ward’s Battery, possessed a single 3.5 inch Blakely field gun; the Inglis Light Artillery of Captain W E Charles had two 3.5 inch Blakely guns, the La Fayette Light Artillery of Captain J T Kanapaux, had two 3.5 inch Blakelys, and the German Light Artillery of Captain W K Bachman also had two 3.5 inch Blakely guns. At Georgetown, at Winyah Bay, there was a single 3.5 inch Blakely in the coastal defences. There were in service seven 3.5 inch Blakely field pieces, out of a total of about 120 guns, and five 4 or 4.5 inch Blakely “siege” guns, out of 16 available. All of these Blakelys were located around Charleston. Company C of the Georgia Siege Artillery, under Captain G W Johnson, was at the same moment manning a 4 inch Blakely gun at Battery Haskell at Legare’s Point on James Island, south of Charleston. The Georgia Siege Artillery also worked the same 4 inch Blakely gun at Battery Marshall, and other locations in Charleston, where it was hampered by the lack of adequately finished bolts and shells, which limited its range and hindered its accuracy. This 4 inch “Blakely” rifle was almost certainly a proprietary design of Fawcett, Preston & Company, and not a Blakely patent gun.
On August 17, 1864 at Petersburg, Virginia, there were five 32 pounder Blakelys, in two batteries, pounding the enemy trenches. One was captured at Fort Clifton, near Petersburg, and recorded as a 3.67 inch Blakely piece.
At the fall of Fort Morgan, protecting Mobile Bay, on August 24, 1864, there were within two 8 inch Blakely rifled guns, among the heavy batteries.
At Savannah, Georgia, on December 24, 1864, one 32 pounder Blakely and two 12 pounder Blakelys were still in action.
Captain Charles’s battery had lost one of its two Blakelys by December 25, 1864, but was still able to see off the abolitionist warship Marblehead, trying to move up the Stono River, at Legareville, South Carolina.
Also in December 1864, there was one 8 inch Blakely gun remaining at Fort Fisher, at Wilmington, North Carolina. It had taken a severe beating in successive attacks on the fort, its muzzle was chipped and the rear of its carriage damaged by shell fragments, but it was still firing. It was commanded by Lieutenant W H Williford of Company F, 36 North Carolina Regiment, the 2nd North Carolina Artillery. Its sister had been sent to Charleston in the previous year.
On January 4, 1865 Captain Zimmerman’s Battery had two 3.5 inch Blakelys at Pocotaligo, near Charleston, South Carolina. One had to be abandoned through the lack of effective ammunition.
General Wade Hampton was clearly fond of his Blakely guns. On February 25, 1865 he appealed for the return of them to his command. General Lee’s staff could only apologise, they had the guns but no equipments for their working or ammunition. They sent him smooth-bores. Other units with Blakely’s ordnance included Captain Thomas R Thornton’s Caroline (Virginia) Light Artillery Battery, which received a 3½ inch Blakely gun, with forty shells and a hundred shot, at Hardeeville, South Carolina, on June 30, 1862. The Caroline Artillery fought in Northern Virginia around Richmond for most of the war, as a mixed battery of smooth-bores and rifles. The Kilcrease (Florida) Light Artillery was formed on May 25, 1863 under Captain F L Villepigue, who was replaced by Lieutenant Patrick Houstoun in November 1864. It possessed four 3 ½ inch Blakely field guns. The battery fought to defend Charleston, and by 1865 was also active in its home state. In the final four months of the war several guns recorded in the Official Records as being “Blakely’s” were captured by the enemy. In February 1865 at Greensboro, NC, two 4.62 inch Blakelys; on February 17, at Columbia, SC, four Blakely’s, presumably 3.5 inch; and on March 3, at Cheraw, SC, two 20 pounders, measured at 3 9/16 inch bore and a 16 pounder with a bore of the novel 3.5 inch Blakely calibre, were seized.
A lone 3.5 inch Blakely field gun was surrendered, along with the other ordnance, to the victors at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on May 31, 1865. It is likely that this piece was from Chew’s Virginia Battery, and which had served in the horse artillery from its establishment early in 1861, when it was Turner Ashby’s Virginia Battery.
That was not quite the end of Captain Blakely’s contribution to the south: two 18 pounder and two 12 pounder guns of his design were still defending Galveston, Texas, on June 1, 1865.
“Never did a sportsman bring down his bird with more unerring shot than did that Blakely... Each shot seemed drawn to the flying target with fatal accuracy...”
Major General J E B Stuart to General R E Lee, August 20, 1863, when a single gun of Chew’s Battery dispersed enemy cavalry at Beaver Creek Bridge
7 inch Brooke Blakely rifled cannon Cast-iron with a wrought-iron breech hoop. Brooke’s unique breech shown Brooke Guns 1862 John Mercer Brooke was a Commander in the Confederate States Navy and their Navy Department’s Chief of Ordnance throughout the American War. It was made clear to the British Parliament in 1862 that Captain Blakely had communicated his principles of ordnance to Commander Brooke and that the banded and rifled guns used by the Confederate States Navy to Brooke’s designs were “licensed” Blakely guns.
All of this is in keeping with Blakely’s co-operation with his peers and his system of outsourcing production. Such was the similarity of their work, either by design or by accident that at least one observer in Britain confused the Blakely and Brooke guns. It is sufficient to say that Captain Blakely covered the principles used in Brooke guns in British patents well before their appearance in America and that Commander Brooke covered several of his own inventions and improvements in ordnance with Confederate States’ patents but made no claim to banding, composite construction or rifling.
Captain Blakely was writing to The Times in London during April 1862 with accurate descriptions of the armament of the CSS Virginia after its epic battle with the Monitor in the previous month, information that he could only have been given by Commander Brooke. He also had in his possession in 1863 plans for ordnance signed by Brooke.
In addition he claimed before a Committee of Parliament in 1863 that Commander Brooke’s guns were built to “his models”. It should also be noted that the copper cups or disks used as gas checks on the base of Confederate States Navy projectiles for rifled guns were to Blakely’s 1863 patent and were impressed with his name during their manufacture in Selma, Alabama.
There are no surviving records in Britain or America of the correspondence between Commander Brooke and Captain Blakely; nor any evidence that Blakely visited America.
The Cannon for the Navy Ordnance provided by Captain Blakely for the Confederate States Navy is described later, piece by piece, in the chapter headed The Guns.
John Brown’s Guns 1862 On June 7, 1862 John Brown & Company, steel-masters, of the Atlas Works, Sheffield, invoiced Z C Pearson & Company of London and Hull for two lots of ordnance on behalf of the Confederate States.
Zachariah Pearson was an early and remarkably unsuccessful blockade-runner into the southern states. His principle success was bringing the three large 8 inch Blakely-Low Moor guns into Wilmington, North Carolina, on the speedy Merrimac for Caleb Huse. His company failed late in 1862 after losing most of its fleet to the enemy.
John Brown made five 18 pounder, 3.67 inch bore “patent rifled guns” in steel, with naval carriages and slides, and 250 shells, together with six 12 pounder guns and 300 shells, for Pearson in mid-1862, who billed their cost on to Captain Huse in London. Huse, of course, purchased material for the Army and not the Navy.
It is possible that these pieces, especially the relatively large 18 pounders, were made to Blakely’s patent, as yet another of the Captain’s out-sources; in which case they may be identified with such sized guns used in Northern Virginia and in defending Charleston. 
Blakely 13 inch gun for Charleston 1863 The Greatest Guns 1863 Fragments of the largest Blakely guns built also still exist at West Point Museum. They were a pair of 13 inch calibre, 50,000 pounds (22 tons) weight rifled guns ordered by Captain Caleb Huse, CSA, late in 1862 for coastal defence. They were without question the largest pieces of ordnance in existence at the time of their installation. At a cost originally estimated at £10,000, George Forrester & Company of the Vauxhall Ironworks, Liverpool, provided the two 13 inch calibre 196 inch cast-iron barrels, rifled with four right-handed grooves; two wrought-iron gun carriages and two cranes to load the guns; with, for each gun, 150 solid bolts of 650 pounds weight and 50 shells of 450 pounds weight. The full charge of propellant was fifty pounds of powder. They were described as having a diameter at the muzzle of 25 inches, and at the largest breech ring of 49 inches.
After previously receiving the estimated cost of £10,000 on account, the two great guns were eventually invoiced by the Blakely Ordnance Company to Major Huse in May 1863 as: ● Two 12¾ inch rifled cannon with cranes for lifting shot £5,600 0s 0d ● Two carriages on wrought-iron tubular girder traversing platforms complete, with all appurtenances and fittings complete £4,800 0s 0d ● 149 shot of 648 pounds at 2s 4d per pound £905 3s 6d ● 40 shells for same guns £241 10s 0d ● 80 Boxer time fuses at 7s 0d £28 0s 0d
● Total: £11,574 13s 6d In exchange the pair therefore cost around $58,000 in US gold or $140,000 in US greenbacks. However in cotton they would require the export to England of just two hundred and forty 400 pound bales of middling orleans staple valued in Liverpool at 30d a pound. As described by Captain Blakely writing to John Brooke in Richmond, the barrels were made of two concentric tubes of cast-iron, the inner one a plain tube, five inches thick, of Low Moor iron. The outer shorter tube was of stronger cast-iron carrying the trunnions. The two tubes were connected and sealed at the breech by a cast-bronze chamber-piece, containing a gas chamber that was intended to absorb some of the expansive shock.
Blakely 13 inch gun rifling The size of the barrels was such that it was impossible to store them below decks on a ship of a size able to run the blockade into the south. The former Confederate cruiser Sumter renamed the Gibraltar was freighted with the cannon vertically so that it appeared as if she had two extra funnels and successfully ran into Wilmington, North Carolina, on August 18, 1863. Their transfer from Wilmington to Charleston, South Carolina, on the instructions of General P G T Beauregard, was a major operation. The components for each gun carriage alone required seven railroad cars; the first train with these arrived on August 25, 1863. The first gun barrel followed four days later, on August 29. Whilst the barrels weighed 50,000 lbs their wrought-iron carriages each weighed a further 58,000 lbs. The complete gun mounting comprised a top carriage and an undercarriage that rotated on a central pivot-circle, relying on friction and gravity to absorb the immense recoil forces. The top carriage, supporting the barrel, recoiled on iron sledges up an incline formed from two massive iron girders – the undercarriage. The friction between the sledges and the undercarriage was adjustable by screws called compressors. At the extremity of recoil the sledges were raised and the carriage rested on braked wheels until the piece was loaded. Once loading was completed the wheel brakes were released and the carriage and its gun rolled forward to the firing position at which point the iron sledges were screwed down once more.
Loading and firing was elaborate and slow, just once every fifteen minutes, requiring the man-handling of massive shot, difficult even with the novel muzzle-mounted crane, as well as the elevating and the traversing of a 48 ton barrel and carriage. The 20 inch long cylindrical iron bolts were cast with four diagonal flanges to fit the rifling cut to Scott’s pattern; the flanges had to be carefully eased spirally down the barrel to avoid jamming. The original 22 inch long round-nosed, hollow shells of 470 pounds weight, had similar cast-in flanges. Despite these difficulties it was claimed that each piece could throw one of the 650 pound armour-piercing bolts up to seven miles.
Locally-made 13 inch projectiles had the flanges made of brass and inset into the cast-iron bodies. 
The second 13 inch Blakely rifle, sketched by Conrad Wise Chapman in 1863 at Battery Ramsey, on White Point, replacing the one that was damaged The wooden carriage is temporary, made at Charleston Arsenal According to Brigadier-General Josiah Gorgas, CSA, Chief of Ordnance** “The guns were built up of a wrought-iron (sic) cylinder, closed at the breech with a brass screw-plug, some thirty inches long, and chambered to seven inches. This cylinder had three successive jackets, each shorter than its predecessor, so that from muzzle to breech the thickness of the gun increased by steps of about three-and-a-half inches. The object of the seven-inch chamber in the brass plug was to afford an air or gas space which would diminish the strain on the gun.”
General P G T Beauregard, CSA, Commanding the Military District of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida** described the guns in these words “They were bored through from muzzle to breech; the breech was then plugged with a brass block extending into the bore at least two feet, and into which had been reamed a chamber about eighteen inches in length and six in diameter, while the vent entered the bore immediately in advance of this chamber. The projectiles provided were shells weighing, when loaded, about three hundred and fifty pounds, and solid cylindrical shot weighing seven hundred and thirty pounds; the charge for the latter was sixty pounds of powder.”
Unfortunately there was no manual of instruction with these great guns and the principal of an air space to allow gradual expansion of the propulsive gas was not then understood. In initial, experimental firing at Charleston the powder charge was forced into the air chamber of one gun with the consequence that the bronze breech-plug and the cast-iron inner tube were damaged when it was first fired on September 11, 1863. With 2˚ of elevation and 40 pounds of powder (rather than the intended 50 pounds) the test shell flew 800 yards and “skipped” the water for another 200 yards. But it was immediately found that the cast-iron breech tube of the gun had eleven small, but visible cracks in it.
It took only a short time for a commission of ordnance officers under General G T Rains, in consultation with Blakely’s associate Commander Brooke CSN in Richmond, to determine the cause of this damage; the report was published on September 24. Captain Blakely’s explanation of the air chamber, which differed slightly from Brooke’s, only arrived in Richmond during February 1864.
Observing these loading rules the other 13 inch gun was fired successfully on October 2 and was mounted at the White Point Battery by November 1863. The damaged gun was successfully repaired by local engineers, J M Eason & Brother, with works at Columbus and Nassau Streets, Charleston, and was set up early in 1864 at Fraser’s Battery, Charleston.
The huge pivoting iron friction carriages were assembled and installed only later; a simpler wood and iron mount made at Charleston Arsenal being used initially. In a letter to Commander Bulloch in Liverpool by Secretary of the Navy S R Mallory were enclosed two papers on the bursting of the 13 inch gun at Charleston for Captain Blakely; these arrived by January 20, 1864. On January 28, 1864, Captain Blakely wrote from his house at 34 Montpelier Square, London, to Commander Matthew Maury, CSN:
“I have received your note of yesterday containing Capt Brooke’s enquiry about my big cannon. These 13 inch guns were commenced early in 1862 when steel could not be had in masses as it can now. They were intended to defend a harbour against ironclad ships & I calculated & I think correctly that with a charge of about 50 or 60 pounds of powder even the cast-iron shells could be projected through 4 inch iron – certainly this 650 pound shot could.”
“Very great strength was not necessary for so small a comparative charge provided the full force of the powder were prevented from acting on the gun at the instant of ignition. This was one of the reasons for planning the air-chamber, although the same purpose might have been answered by not ramming the powder home, a method of relieving cast-iron guns and of securing great uniformity of range, which I venture to recommend. Of course great care must be taken always to ram down the cartridge to exactly the same point & more powder may be used than could be safely if rammed home. The effect on the gun between the cartridge & shot is less than if the cartridge is simply elongated. I did not think a simple cast-iron gun hooped would be strong enough, so I had these guns made on a plan which I cannot help thinking would be useful to your nation, namely two concentric tubes both of cast-iron – the inner one of Low Moor iron and quite a plain tube without any moulding whatever and only 5 inches thick. Such a tube can be made of perfect soundness in every part.”
“Over it I fitted another short tube with trunnions.” “The outer tube I made of stronger & less stretching cast-iron... The longitudinal strain I divided proportionely (sic) between the two tubes by making the surface of the inner tube acted on backwards by the powder present a surface of about 70 round inches to the front, while the bronze gas chamber only shows a frontage of 100 round inches all the pressure on which it communicates to the outer tube. I attribute the breaking of the breech in firing more to the absence of pressure on the surface of the inner tube than to the excess of pressure on the gas chamber, which by mistake they filled with powder. There is a vast difference between pressing with a couple of thousand tons on one of two objects lightly attached to another to which no pressure is applied & pressing both in the same direction exactly in proportion to their weight. In the one case they must be separated. In the other case there would be absolutely no tendency to separate. Of course I do not mean that in a gun of 20 tons weight & fixed by its trunnions such an absence of strain can ever be approached, but I do think nearly all tendency of the gas chamber to leave the inner iron tube would have been obviated by placing the charge where it could have acted during the first instance on the inner iron tube. Had the breech then blown out the inner tube should have broke also & part gone to the rear.”
“I did not quite wish the cartridge placed as Capt Brooke imagines, namely quite in front of the chamber. My reason for this was that I feared the gas might penetrate between the bronze chamber and the iron & so act on a large surface.”
“To prevent this I desired the powder to be placed in a long limp thin cartridge, part of which should enter the chamber; or else as a pear-shaped cartridge. Captain Brooke’s experiment with the second gun which has been fired with perfect success with 55 lbs of powder in front to the chamber proves that he was right & I was wrong.”
“Pray thank him for the interest he takes in my weapon...” 
T A Blakely 
Charleston Arsenal, April 1865 To the right a jagged fragment of one of the 13 inch Blakely guns. To the left are two 13 inch pointed shells and two 13 inch flanged bolts, behind them and behind the tree is the breech of a 13 inch piece, the massive ring on the far left is part of the carriage (Click on picture for enlarged view, use Previous Page to resume) A detachment of 65 men of the South Carolina Gist Guard under Captain Chichester was deployed to work the 13 inch gun on August 30, 1864. At Charleston, the White Point Battery (or Battery Ramsey) consisted of the second or “as built” 13 inch Blakely, two 11 inch smooth-bores and another 11 inch smooth-bore recovered from the wreck of the USS Keokuk, on White Point Gardens, Charleston, at the city’s southernmost point overlooking the harbour. The original and repaired great gun was eventually set up on its own at a Battery on Fraser’s (called by the enemy “Frazier’s”) Wharf, a little further north up the Cooper River, also pointing into the harbour. 
White Point Battery and Fraser’s Wharf Battery 1865 From drawings made by the enemy Of note are the defensive earthworks and the “bombproofs” for ammunition At White Point, the Blakely gun is No 1, on the extreme right (Not to common scale) 
Charleston, South Carolina, 1864 Lower arrow, White Point battery; Upper arrow, Fraser’s Wharf battery (Click on picture for enlarged view, use Previous Page to resume) It ought to be noted that the Confederate States Powder Works at Augusta, Georgia, a remarkably successful enterprise, manufactured 34,213 pounds of “Blakely Powder” for the two Great Guns at Charleston, enough for 680 firings. This was around one per cent of its total production of cannon and small-arms propellant between 1863 and April 1865. In comparison it produced 1,205,025 pounds of “Columbiad Powder” for other great guns, 1,036,466 pounds of “Cannon Powder” for field pieces, and 129,473 pounds of “Mortar Powder”. A British military visitor to the Augusta works in 1864 was impressed by their Blakely propellant: “A charge of this powder looks more like a bag of coals than anything else, each grain being as big as a hen’s egg.” Both barrels were deliberately broken-up with overloaded charges by their gunners in February 1865 to prevent their further use by the Abolitionists when the city fell. A five hundred pound piece of the barrel was thrown several hundred feet into the roof space of a nearby mansion house at No 9 East Battery Street, on Battery Park in Charleston, in the course of the demolition, where it still remains as a souvenir in the rafters above the master bedroom. The network of 12 inch square wood beam foundations for the White Point Battery gun were discovered in 1976 still in position, buried under a road.
The Confederate States Army was proud of its two 13 inch Blakely cannon, whose presence rendered the enemy fleet so fearful that, without even firing a shot in anger, they had kept Charleston harbour open to the sea. So much so that they were the only guns in the city destroyed when the invading army finally entered.
The 13 inch guns were recorded for history at least twice in the sketches of the defences of Charleston by the artist, Conrad Wise Chapman. The remains of these guns have been measured by their captors at 12¾ inch calibre but are referred to in Blakely’s contemporary writings as 13 inch pieces; the latter is used for convenience. 
The Undercarriage of the 13 inch Blakely gun at White Point, Charleston 1865 One of Josiah Vavasseur’s first gun carriage designs Note the entrance to the earthwork “bombproof” ammunition chamber behind the right end of the wrought-iron chassis 
Another view of the Undercarriage of the 13 inch Blakely gun at White Point, looking towards Morris Island, across Charleston Harbour Visible here are the bell-section friction shoes beneath the axle 
The undercarriage of the 13 inch Blakely gun at White Point looking from the earthworks across to Battery Gardens Of note are fragments of the barrel to the side and what appears to be the breech casting in the background 
The remains of the Undercarriage of the other 13 inch Blakely gun At Fraser’s Wharf on the Cooper River, Charleston in 1865 
The muzzle and reconstructed breech of the first 13 inch Blakely gun (Above and below) J M Eason & Brother of Charleston added wrought-iron rings and eight massive retaining bolts to the breech of the damaged piece late in 1863 Pictures courtesy the late Wayne Stark 
Epilogue On June 23, 1868 the US Congress received a report on Ordnance and Ordnance Stores then in hand with its army. Included were ten 3.5 inch Blakely steel rifles held at its arsenals and armouries, with 1,285 rounds of 3.5 inch shell, 260 rounds of 3.5 inch case, 40 rounds of 3.5 inch canister and 22 rounds of 3.5 inch shot, the projectiles all to Hotchkiss’s patent. In addition there were three other 3.5 inch Blakely guns classified as trophies and two “12 pounder Blakely iron carriages”. These were exclusive of any Blakely field guns in state or private hands, or missed or miss-titled in the stores.
The report showed additionally that eight large 8 inch Blakely coastal defence guns were still in active service in the hands of US troops in that year!
Other than the survivors from the eight field guns purchased by Frémont in June 1861, the twenty-one “US” Blakely guns of 1868 were either captured from southern forces in the field or detained as contraband off blockade runners before they reached the coast. The Washington authorities possessed sufficient 3.5 inch Blakely field guns from these sources to order the manufacture of shells to their unique calibre from Benjamin Hotchkiss, Bashley Britten’s patent projectiles not being available.
Hotchkiss patent projectile with a lead waist band, 1861 Made as shells from 1863 in 3.5 inch Blakely calibre for captured guns in US service, substituting for the Bashley Britten patent shell Regarding ammunition for the 3½ inch Blakely steel rifles obtained by the Washington government; the foundry of Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss & Sons, 92 Beekman Street, New York, was commissioned to supply their patent projectiles, which comprised an iron body, a lead waist band and an iron base piece, for them. These were in wide use in other calibres. Percussion-fused shells, time-fused shells, case shot and canister in un-specified “assortments” were provided in the 3½ inch “Blakely” calibre from the summer of 1863.
The first order was issued by the US Chief of Ordnance on June 6, 1863 for 1,000 “assorted” 3.4 inch Hotchkiss projectiles to be delivered to the occupation force at New Bern, North Carolina. This was followed by 2,500 “assorted” 3.5 inch projectiles for St Louis arsenal, Missouri, intended for the “English guns” on July 31, 1863; 3,000 more were ordered for St Louis on September 2; and, finally, 4,000 “three-fifties” (3.5 inch) were ordered for New York arsenal on October 22, 1863. These piecemeal orders compare with the contract for 50,000 Hotchkiss projectiles ordered in August 1864, and that in September 1864 for 100,000 more, for the US 3 inch Ordnance rifle field gun.
On August 5, 1863 the US Chief of Ordnance ordered 2,400 Hotchkiss projectiles in 2.9 inch calibre for the “light English rifle steel guns” at St Louis arsenal. These were most probably intended for a small number of other British-made steel guns were used in the Far West theatre, and not Blakely guns.
Survivors There exist in the United States, according to Wayne Stark’s remarkable inventory of Civil War cannon: five 2.9 inch 9 pounders, seventeen 3.5 inch 12 pounders, one 3.75 inch 18 pounder, three 4.5 inch 65 pounders, one 7 inch 100 pounder, two 7.5 inch 120 pounders, one 8 inch 130 pounder, one 9 inch 240 pounder and parts of one 13 inch 650 pounder gun, in all thirty-two guns made to Captain Blakely’s patent.
Blakely Guns in Confederate Service 1861-65 Compiled from the official records and from battlefield evidence
6 pounder Blakely, 2.67 inch bore (Army) 9 pounder Blakely, 2.90 inch bore (Army) 12 pounder Blakely, 3.50 inch bore (Army) 16 pounder Blakely, 3.75 inch bore (Army) 18 pounder [Blakely], 4.00 inch bore (Army)* 32 pounder Blakely, 4.5 inch bore (Army) 70 pounder Blakely, 6 inch bore (Navy) 100 pounder Blakely, 7 inch bore (Navy) 120 pounder, Blakely, 7.50 inch bore conversion (Army) 150 pounder Blakely, 8.12 inch bore conversion (Army) 240 pounder Blakely, 9 inch bore (Navy) 650 pounder Blakely, 13 inch bore (Army)
Records of importation, orders-of-battle and battlefield evidence do not correlate. For example; the presence of Bashley Britten skirted shells on a battlefield site does not evidence the use of Blakely patent guns, Britten shells were used in all rifled field ordnance. *The 4 inch calibre gun is NOT a Blakely piece but an English copy, enlarged, of the cast-steel 3 inch US Ordnance Rifle.
 **Quotations The observations of General Beauregard and of General Gorgas on these and other matters were recorded by the Southern Historical Society from the 1870’s onwards. They were clearly made from memory rather than from records, official or otherwise, well after the events, which accounts for their variety in technical detail. Beauregard, an engineer officer by profession, retained a great enthusiasm for Blakely’s ordnance; Gorgas did not - he was generally, and quite reasonably, negative on elaborate technical innovations that affected the overall ordnance supply situation of the Confederate field armies, an area in which he worked miracles. However Gorgas was appalled at the mishandling of the first 13 inch gun and made his feelings felt vociferously in official communications at the time.
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