I've made it past 300 posts!

This past week I've gone past 300 posts! I didn't even notice at the time, but my post on Thanksgiving in the Civil War was number 300.

This blog keeps growing. I only started in July of 2011 and I've collected a nice group of followers. I appreciate every one of you! Thanks to you my hits have risen to an average of 250-300 a day. I'm planning on expanding this blog in 2013 with more posts and participation in blogfests. I'm always open to guest posts too.

I'm sort of spread out on social media right now and I think it's best to focus only on one or two. This blog and my Goodreads account will be getting the most attention. I'll also be using my Twitter feed, because that brings in new readers.

So what does this picture have to do with anything? Well, it's a 300-pounder Parrot gun, a rifled cannon used as a shore battery that threw a 300-pound shell. The photo is courtesy Wikipedia.

Civil War Photo Friday: Quaker guns and dummy soldiers

Trickery has always been a part of warfare. During the Civil War one favorite scare tactic was to paint logs black and mount them on carriages to make the enemy think you had artillery. This was done by both sides, especially the Confederates, who suffered from a serious weapon shortage.

Here are two images from the Library of Congress showing these "Quaker guns", so called because they wouldn't kill anybody. The bottom image even has a few scarecrows, or "scare Yankees"!

Civil War Photo Friday: A Floating Battery

Over at the fine blog Seven Score and Ten, there's a reprint of a report by General Grant about moving a floating battery to New Madrid, Missouri. this would make sense as that town is on the Mississippi River, and a battery there would help reinforce Union control of the all-important waterway.

But what was a floating battery? Basically a floating platform for several cannon that could be towed to a strategic position where there wasn't any convenient land. They weren't warships per se, not being very navigable and often not having any locomotive power of their own.

Perhaps the most famous floating battery of the Civil War was the first, built by the rebels and used in the bombardment of fort Sumter. As you can see from these Wikipedia images, it was a barnlike structure with only three walls, yet it gave good service during the bombardment. made of thick wood sheathed in iron, it took several direct hits from the fort with the loss of only one man wounded.

Mud mortars of the Civil War

By mid-December of 1861, things had calmed down somewhat in Missouri. The Union command still worried that General Price would return from the southwestern portion of the state with his Confederate army, but there was no real sign he would do so. So while they waited, Union troops busied themselves with sweeps through northern and central Missouri to capture bands of secessionists harassing the area or heading down to join Price.

One of these sweeps is detailed in the Official Records. Major George C. Marshall's command, composed of 300 men of the regiment Merrill's Horse and three companies of regular cavalry, moved through Saline County on December 3-12. They fought several skirmishes and took prisoners almost daily. Some were rebels who had skirmished with them, others were not so designated and were probably civilians suspected of supporting the South. Searching houses as they went, the Union cavalry found several caches of gunpowder and other items of war.

On December 5 they proudly encamped on the farm of the secessionist Missouri governor Claiborn Fox Jackson (who had long since fled with Price), "and raised the Stars and Stripes over the traitor's house."

December 9 found them near Waverly, home to J.O. Shelby, who had not yet made a name for himself as one of the Confederacy's greatest cavalry raiders. As the Union troops camped that night, "Shelby brought his company down that night to try to annoy us by firing at our pickets and to try to scare us by bombarding us with a 10-inch mortar loaded with mud. Lieutenants Kelly's and Gordon's companies were called out, and soon scattered them and silenced their formidable battery."

I've never heard of a mortar being packed with mud. I would assume Shelby was a victim of the nagging ammunition shortage of the Confederacy, and simply used whatever he had at hand. One would think rocks or gravel would prove more effective! In my book on Shelby, I describe how the raider used many tactics to fool his enemies. Once he held up shipping on the Missouri River with a sinister-looking log. Not a hollowed-out log converted into a cannon like at the Battle of Athens, Missouri, just a log.

The next day the Union troops proceeded on into Waverly and "found 9 kegs of powder concealed under a platform in Shelby's store. The celebrated mortar was found and taken."

And thus ends the saga of the Civil War mud mortar.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Anvil artillery

You learn the weirdest things writing for Osprey Publishing.

While researching my latest project, The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang—Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876, I came across an account of the citizens of Northfield celebrating after they fought off the James-Younger gang. The gang had tried to rob the bank and local shopkeepers grabbed their guns, killed two of the robbers on the spot, wounded the rest, and sent them galloping out of town.

To mark this special occasion, Northfielders set off some "anvil artillery". This consisted of putting a load of gunpowder under an anvil, lighting a fuse, running away, and watching the anvil fly into the sky.

I wonder if anyone used anvil artillery in the Civil War? It would have been more useful than the hollowed out log used at the Battle of Athens, Missouri

Kids, don't try this at home!



Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Civil War Photo Friday: The Famous Cannonball of Lexington, Missouri

On this date 150 years ago, the Confederate army under General Sterling Price was preparing to attack Lexington, a prosperous town on the Missouri River. They'd recently defeated the Union army at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, captured Springfield, and had marched all the way to central Missouri.

The rebels appeared unstoppable. With 12,000 men and more rallying to The Cause, there was no force within striking distance that was of comparable size. Defending Lexington were only 3,500 Union troops under Col. James A. Mulligan. Despite the long odds, Mulligan dug in on a hill overlooking town and waited for reinforcements.

Price's advance guard arrived on September 11. They didn't attack immediately, instead waiting for the rest of the army to come up. This allowed Mulligan a chance to complete his fortifications, which included earthworks and a stone building on top of the hill that was a Masonic College. Skirmishing started on September 13 but the main assault didn't start until September 18, once all of Price's supplies and men had arrived. I'll write about that in a later post.

It was a tough fight with lots of gunplay and a days-long artillery duel. One Union shot passed over the Confederate lines and landed in town, right into a column of the Lafayette County courthouse. Price had established his headquarters across the street, so the cannonball was probably aimed at him. It's still there today. I took a shot of it when I was on my Jesse James road trip.

How does Jesse James fit into this? His big brother, future outlaw Frank James fought in this battle on the Confederate side!

Coping with shortages during the Civil War

In my Civil War novel, A Fine Likeness, both protagonists struggle with problems of military supply. Jimmy Rawlins spends much of the early part of the novel worrying about how he's going to get percussion caps for his bushwhacker band. Being a bunch of teenagers armed to the teeth, they go through a lot! Captain Richard Addison is similarly preoccupied with getting better weapons for his Union militia.

This was a common problem in the real war. An anecdote from the first year of the Civil War in Missouri shows how one Confederate artillery battery dealt with the problem. Lieutenant Barstow, a Confederate artillery officer in Henry Guibor's battery, had helped defeat General Sigel at the Battle of Carthage on 5 July 1861. They'd used up most of their munitions in the fight and were faced with a dire shortage. Barstow relates,

"One of Sigel's captured wagons furnished a few loose round shot. With these for a beginning, Guibor established an 'arsenal of construction.' A turning lathe in Carthage supplied sabots; the owner of a tin shop contributed straps and canisters; iron rods which a blacksmith gave and cut into small pieces made good slugs for the canisters; and a bolt of flannel, with needles and thread, freely donated by a dry goods man, provided us with material for cartridge bags.

A bayonet provided a good candlestick and at night the men went to work making cartridges, strapping shots to the sabots, and filling the bags from a barrel of powder placed some distance from the candle. My first cartridge resembled a turnip, rather than the trim cylinders from the Confederate arsenals, and would not take a gun on any terms. But we soon learned the trick, and at the close range at which our next battle was fought, our homemade ammunition proved as effective as the best."

Source: Jasper County, Missouri, in the Civil War by Ward Schrantz. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

For more on Civil War Artillery, check this link in this sentence.