Bureau of Ordnance 32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds in Keene, New Hampshire

Oct 21

Monument and 32-Pounders in Keene, NH — Two US Navy Bureau of Ordnance 32-Pounders of 4,500 Pounds are displayed flanking a memorial in Keene, New Hampshire.

Two United States Navy Bureau of Ordnance 32-Pounders of 4,500 Pounds are displayed flanking a Civil War monument in Central Square in Keene, New Hampshire.

The details of these two cannons are:

Registry Number 227 manufactured by Seyfert, McManus, and Company in 1865. Original weight as manufactured is recorded as 4,459 pounds.
Registry Number 236 manufactured by Seyfert, McManus, and Company in 1865. Original weight as manufactured is recorded as 4,533 pounds.

My visit to this site was at sunset. The combination of lower light and the peeling paint on the cannons made for fairly poor photographs.

A note about the type of cannon:

This type of cannon was designed by the Bureau of Ordnance in 1864 due to a perceived need for lightweight 32-Pounders. In the 1840s and 1850s, relatively light weight 32-Pounders of 27-Hundredweight, 33-Hundredweight, and 46-Hundredweight had been designed to equip the upper decks of US Navy ships. During the Civil War, these lighter 32-Pounders had been used to equip the many merchant ships which had been taken into service and had not been designed for heavy cannon.

The resulting 32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds borrowed the general shape from Admiral Dahlgren’s 9-Inch, 10-Inch, and 11-Inch cannons. However, the 32-Pounders, like the similar 8-Inch Shell guns of 6,500 Pounds, had a simplified ring cascabel. Few if any of this type of cannon would have seen any service during the Civil War.