An original 10-Inch Confederate Columbiad manufactured at Tredegar in 1863 is mounted at Fort Macon in North Carolina.

In January of 1862 the Confederate defenders of Fort Macon anxiously awaited the delivery of a 10-Inch Columbiad along with an 8-Inch Columbiad which had been shipped by rail from Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. A joint US Navy and US Army attack upon the fort was expected at any moment, and there was little sympathy for delays incurred by the railroads. As it turned out, the Federal attack on Fort Macon was also delayed, and the two heavy guns were received and mounted at the fort. (Paul Branch, Fort Macon: A History, pg. 121)

By the time of the siege of Fort Macon, the fort’s total battery was 2 10-Inch Columbiads, five 8-Inch Columbiads, one 5.82-Inch Rifled Columbiad, four rifled (but not banded) Navy 32-Pounders, eighteen Navy 32-Pounders, eighteen 24-Pounders, and six 32-Pounder carronades (Branch, pg. 244).

Though the heavy Columbiads were intended for use against ships, during the siege the two 10-Inch Columbiads were fired at high elevations with low charges in an attempt to through shells into the US Army trenches (Branch, pg. 144).

Much of the Fort Macon’s Confederate armament, including the Columbiads, seems to have continued to be mounted at the fort under US Army administration during and immediately after the American Civil War. Branch’s history of the fort includes a table which shows the two 10-Inch Columbiads and five 8-Inch Columbiads present through 1873. However, the Fort Macon Columbiads (as well as almost all the old muzzle loading cannons) were sent for scrap in the late 19th century (pg. 245).

The Friends of Fort Macon have done an amazing job of “rearming” the fort with an impressive battery of primarily reproduction cannons. However, four of the cannons at the fort are original. Two 10-Inch mortars have been at the fort since the US Army seized the fort in 1862. A Model 1841 6-Pounder seems to have been donated to the fort in the 1960s.

In 2018 an original 10-Inch Confederate Columbiad was mounted at Fort Macon. This Columbiad had been mounted in the Charleston area during the Civil War, but by the 1870s it was sold by the United States government as scrap. The cannon was loaded aboard the merchant schooner Philadelphia along with around twenty-five other heavy cannons as well as old railroad iron. The schooner set sail with her cargo of scrap, but the vessel was wrecked and sank near Georgetown, South Carolina in 1877.

The wreck was rediscovered in the 1990s. In the early 2010s Long Bay Salvage recovered six heavy cannon from the wreck of the schooner Philadelphia. I believe all six of the recovered guns were 10-Inch Columbiads. (I believe Long Bay Salvage retains rights to the wreck. I would be very interested to know details about the roughly 20 cannons which remain under water off the South Carolina coast!) One of the recovered Columbiads, after preservation, was purchased for Fort Macon and is now on display there. A 2018 post on the Friends of Fort Macon Facebook page shows the newly acquired Columbiad being mounted upon its reproduction carriage.

A YouTube video about the salvage efforts can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Qv45IpCTs

An article about the salvage can be found here: https://www.coastal.edu/app/newsletter/archived_newsletter/49/1418

Despite the more than 130 years underwater, the Columbiad remains in excellent condition. Many of the markings are quite clearly visible on the gun. (I have seen cannons which have never been submerged in far poorer condition!) The Columbiad is mounted on a reproduction center-pintle barbette carriage which looks similar to original carriages for US Army Rodman guns. The Columbiad is mounted on the outer covertway battery near where one of Fort Macon’s two 10-Inch Columbiads were mounted at the time of the siege.