24-Pounder of 32 Hundredweight at Fort Pulaski
24-Pounder of 32 Hundredweight of USS Fairfield cast in 1826 at Bellona Foundry displayed at Fort Pulaski
A 24-Pounder of 32 Hundredweight may be seen on Fort Pulaski's parapet. The list of cannons posted at Fort Pulaski lists it as a "24-Pounder Naval Cannon (Model 1835)", however according to the markings recorded in Olmstead et al., the 24-Pounder was cast in 1826 at Bellona Foundry. It's weight in hundredweight is marked as "31-3-25" (3,581 pounds). Looking at the cascabel, it is apparent that a breeching ring has broken off.
The 24-Pounder Medium Cannon of 32 Hundredweight was manufactured to arm the Boston-class sloops of war built in the 1820s for the US Navy. Experience in the War of 1812 had shown that ships armed entirely with carronades were vulnerable to ships armed with long guns - such as when USS Essex was defeated by HMS Phoebe. The Boston class sloops were to be armed with twenty-four of these medium 24-Pounders which weighed considerably less than the long 24-Pounders in USN service at the time which weighed 48 hundredweight - 5,376 pounds. In practice even these medium 24 pounders proved too heavy for the sloops.
The profile of this cannon resembles a lengthened carronade - something that is even more apparent in the drawing of the type which appears in Spencer Tucker's "Arming the Fleet: U.S. Naval Ordnance in the Muzzle Loading Era". The same drawing (pg. 144) shows a slight flare of the bore at the muzzle similar to a carronade. I did not think the photograph the muzzle on my visit to Pulaski. Frankly, I all but ignored ignored this cannon which is mounted between a one-of-a-kind Columbiad and the Brooke and two Blakelys.
The Medium 24-Pounder with the Blakelys and Brooke in the background on Fort Pulaski’s parapet.
Tucker also describes how in the 1830s Inspector of Ordnance Thomas ap Catesby Jones was sharply critical of this model of 24-Pounder. His criticism prompted a board to conduct experiments on the type - experiments in which the majority praised the relative efficiency of the medium 24-Pounders compared with carronades of greater caliber or long guns of less caliber and equal weight. Jones continued his dissent, however. (This is the uncle of Catesby ap Roger Jones who commanded CSS Virginia in the battle with USS Monitor and who would go on to be in charge of the ironworks at Selma.)
Olmstead et al. notes that the Fort Pulaski 24-Pounder served aboard the sloop USS Fairfield. According to Silverstone, USS Fairfield served on the Mediterranean Squadron from 1828 to 1831, as flagship of the West Indies Squadron 1831-1832, on the Pacific Squadron 1833-1835, the Brazil Squadron 1837-1840, and the Mediterranean Squadron 1841-1845. She was decommissioned in 1845 and sold in 1852 and broken up. Silverstone lists Fairfield's initial armament (with the entire class) as twenty-four of these medium 24-Pounders as commissioned. The only subsequent entry for Fairfield is for 1850 when the battery is listed as four 8-Inch and sixteen 32-Pounders. However, other ships of the class in the 1840s are recorded as carrying a battery of mostly carronades with two or four long guns.
The Civil War service of the 24-Pounder at Fort Pulaski does not seem to be known - it is not one of the cannons known to be at the fort in 1862. Certainly old naval cannons of all types were pressed into service to arm southern forts. Six other examples of this type are also known to exist: four in the Mare Island Area (seemingly associated with USS Independence), one at Antietam (also connected with USS Fairfield), and one in Panama City, Panama.
