The Guns of USS Kearsarge in 1894
8-Inch Rifle Number 32 in Lambertville, New Jersey (November 2024) and 8-Inch Rifle Number 30 aboard USS Kearsarge in 1890.
Note: I would like to thank Dr. William Gomez Pretel for his excellent dissertation on the wreck of USS Kearsarge and subsequent journal article co-authored with Erik Farrell. Thanks also go to: the late Nicasio Howard who took photographs of what appear to be Dahlgren cannons at the wreck site in 2015. The Rev. Tori Sumner photographed the 8-Inch Rifle Number 32 in Lambertville, New Jersey and 9-Inch Dahlgren Number 105 in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Laura Curioli photographed the two 8-Inch Rifles at the University of Maine, and Layne J. Chartrand provided the photo of the 9-Inch Dahlgren at Mackinaw City.
USS Kearsarge near the end of her career. I believe that is USS Dolphin astern. Dolphin was the first ship of the “New Navy” - small but modern and steel hulled. - Library of Congress Photo https://www.loc.gov/resource/det.4a13905/
Off Roncador Bank, February 2nd, 1894
In the darkness and spray as the valiant old Kearsarge thumped and ground upon a reef off of Roncador Bank, her crew strained to lift the 17,284 pounds of 8-Inch Rifle Number 30 to throw it overboard. Loud cracking sounds had been heard form the quarterdeck and the mizzenmast, and it was feared that the heavy aft pivot gun would crash through the weakened deck. Only minutes before USS Kearsarge had been sailing peacefully through the western Caribbean on a course towards Bluefields, Nicaragua. Almost all of her officers had been at dinner in the wardroom below. Now she was hard upon the reef, her old engines inadequate to the task of pulling her free.
In 1894, USS Kearsarge was a wooden-hulled relic of the United States Navy which had won the American Civil War. The victor over CSS Alabama in the most celebrated single-ship action of the war, she had been kept in active service longer than most of her contemporaries. An anachronism that arguably had more in common with “Old Ironsides” than the steel hulled battleships and cruisers of the 1890s with their steam machinery for every task, electric lighting, and massive breech loading cannons. Kearsarge’s muzzle-loading cannons were pulled with human muscle. Her stout wooden hull dated from the years of peace before the Civil War. Her steam engines were auxiliary to her sails. She was a beautiful ship, and she was still a cruising warship bearing the flag of an American Admiral and on a mission to promote and protect American diplomatic and commercial interests - until she struck a reef.
Lieutenant Burns T. Walling, an officer aboard USS Kearsarge, wrote a fascinating narrative about the grounding and loss of the veteran ship and the week that her crew spent on the not-quite desert isle of Rondocar Bank. The account from the October 1894 Issue of Proceedings may be read on the Proceedings website or in the scan of the original on the Web Archive.
The entire story is well worth a read, but the portion that deals with the jettisoning of the 8-Inch Rifle is shared here:
She appeared to have taken hard all along her port bilge, being free to starboard and heeling in that direction about ten degrees. For ten or fifteen minutes she thumped mostly along the bilge and on the bottom, with ominous, threatening, cracking sounds in the quarter-deck and about the mizzen mast. These were due principally to the weight of the 8-inch rifle which was gradually crushing its way through the weak deck.
Orders were given to throw the gun overboard, though reluctantly owing to the fear that the ship might bilge against it and start a leak, but saving a foothold had to be the first consideration.
Stories have been told in the service of the difficulty of throwing one of these 8-inch converted guns over the side, and it was more than corroborated in our case, for it required the hardest kind of effort on the part of forty men for one hour and a quarter to accomplish it with a ten degree heel at the start. This was made a slower process than otherwise it might have been by reason of the tangle of running gear on the deck, so likely to catch the men's legs or bodies; the decks had been cleared up once but soon became littered again.
Having stripped the gun it was run out hard against the hurters, but only canted muzzle down. The crew then raised the in-board end of the slide, resting it on a halliard rack, and ran the gun out hard, prying it up with a bar, but with the same result as before; tried it again with a tackle to the gig's strongback, the strongback buckled but the gun held on; next hooked the main and mizzen pendant tackles, but could not get a strap to hold without putting in the cascabel pin, a rather dangerous experiment if not rendered absolutely necessary. Finally the pin was put in, all hands manned the tackle and the gun went over unreeving the tackles with a rush, the blocks smoking.
The relief to the ship was immediately apparent; her stern swung slowly to starboard, pushed by the current against the wind and sea, until the starboard bilge took against the bank, stopping finally at the heading SSW¼W., which did not afterwards change.
US Navy 8-Inch (or 180-Pounder) Muzzle Loading Rifle, Registry Number 30, aboard USS Kearsarge circa 1890. I judge this to be the aft pivot gun due to the orientation of the boats - note the rudder of the boat on the davits. The registry number along with many other details are plainly visible in the highest resolution scans available here: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016807823/
Right trunnion of 8-Inch Rifle Number 30 aboard USS Kearsarge circa 1890. Detail of above photo.
US Navy 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifle Number 32 is displayed at Mary E. Sheridan Park in Lambertville, New Jersey. (Photo by Rev. Tori Sumner - November 2024)
Additional photos of 8-Inch Rifle Number 32 of USS Richmond in Lambertville, New Jersey.
The crew of USS Kearsarge circa 1890. Note that all six Dahlgren cannons can be seen in this photo. The two 8-Inch Rifle conversions are trained to port. Portions of all four 9-Inch Dahlgren smoothbores can also be seen - including the trunnion of the starboard forward 9-Inch Dahlgren. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016807825/
The Guns of the Kearsarge in 1894
In her famous battle with CSS Alabama, USS Kearsarge had carried two 11-Inch Dahlgren guns. Those two 11-Inch Dahlgrens, Registry Numbers 40 and 203, still exist and are in the collection of the Naval History and Heritage Command - I believe at their storage facility in Richmond, Virginia. (See a Mariners Museum post about the role of the Kearsarge guns in the conservation of USS Monitor’s 11-Inch Dahlgrens.)
An article by Dr. William Gomez Pretel and Erik Farrell of the Mariners’ Museum “The Introduction of American Naval Ordnance in the Caribbean Sea in the Late Modern Period: Operational dimensions and American Expansion” describes in detail the armament changes of USS Kearsarge from her commissioning to her loss.
According to the above article, by 1883 the old 11-Inch Dahlgren smoothbores had been replaced with 8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifles on USS Kearsarge. As I have covered in multiple posts on the 8-Inch Rifle (which was also called a “180-Pounder”), the type was created by taking an 11-Inch Dahlgren, boring out the barrel to 13.5 inches, and inserting an 8-Inch rifled wrought-iron sleeve into the enlarged barrel. The trunnions were shortened in length but increased in diameter.
The intention was to create a more accurate and powerful cannon for the US Navy. Using the Dahlgren as a starting point was a measure of economy, but it also insured that the resulting cannon was compatible in terms of space and weight with existing US ships and gun mountings.
Though this converted rifle is not showered with praise in the accounts of Ripley or Olmstead et al., the navy must have judged it successful enough as it seems to have become the standard heavy cannon carried aboard the cruising warships of the US Navy. (Many if not all of the recovered heavy cannons which were salvaged from the squadron lost at Apia in 1889 were these 8-Inch Rifles.)
In addition to 8-Inch Rifles Number 30 and 31, in 1889 USS Kearsarge also carried four 9-Inch Dahlgren smoothbores and a 5.3-Inch Rifle. I believe that the article states that the 5.3-Inch Rifle was a breechloader. 5.3-Inch Parrotts converted to breechloaders in the 1870s may be found in Laconia, New Hampshire.
The 9-Inch Dahlgren Smoothbores are noted as having registry numbers 522, 523, 524, and 525 which were manufactured at Fort Pitt Foundry. In the appendix of The Big Guns, the nearest surviving Fort Pitt 9-Inch Dahlgren is Number 553 which was cast in 1862. Therefore it would seem likely that the 9-Inch Dahlgrens aboard USS Kearsarge were of 1862 or possibly 1861 manufacture.
Some 9-Inch Dahlgrens were modified for use on iron Marsilly carriages post-war by shortening the trunnions. An example of a shortened trunnion 9-Inch Dahlgren may be seen in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The 1890 photos of USS Kearsarge seem to show that the 9-Inch guns, while mounted on iron carriages, retail the longer trunnions of the original manufacture.
9-Inch Dahlgren Number 687 displayed at Mackinaw City. This gun was manufactured at Fort Pitt Foundry in 1863 and was part of the shipment of 20 such cannons to Sackets Harbor in 1864 (subject of a future post). Note that the trunnions - designed in the 1850s for wooden carriages - remain long. The trunnion clearly extends well beyond the iron carriage. Photo courtesy of Layne J. Chartrand. Originally posted in the History of the American Civil War Navies Facebook Group - used with permission.
Note by comparison this detail photo of 9-Inch Dahlgren Number 105 in New Hope, Pennsylvania (originally manufactured at West Point Foundry in 1856), the trunnions do not extend nearly as far outside the frame of the carriage. These shortened trunnions are a post-manufacture alteration for use on iron carriages post war. (See notes on 9-inch Dahlgrens on the “Cannons at Trophy Park” based on the research of Wayne E. Stark.) Photo by Rev. Tori Sumner.
9-Inch Dahlgren Number 258 at Fort McClary in Maine. Behind the 9-Inch Dahlgren are an 8-Inch shell gun of 6,500 pounds and a 32-Pounder of 57-Hundredweight. Note the apparent length of the 7.25-inch long trunnions on the 9-Inch gun vs. the 3-Inch trunnions on the 8-Inch gun.
Detail from above photo of the crew of USS Kearsarge. Note that the trunnion on the forward 9-Inch Dahlgren on the starboard side has an unmodified longer trunnion.
One of two 5.3-Inch Breech Loading Rifles displayed in Laconia, New Hampshire. This type was converted from Civil War manufactured muzzle loading 5.3-Inch Parrott Rifles in the 1870s. Additional photos of the Laconia Parrotts below.
Detail from photo of USS Kearsarge near the top of this post. The Parrott rifle with its distinctive band mounted on the forecastle can be seen at the center of the photo. Detail from: https://www.loc.gov/resource/det.4a13905/
Another detail from the same photo as above. The muzzles of the two 8-Inch Rifles can be seen - run out to port as in all the other 1890 photographs. Detail from https://www.loc.gov/resource/det.4a13905/
Inspection aboard USS Kearsarge circa 1890. The aft 8-Inch Rifle, Number 30, can be seen at bottom left. Note that this gun as well as the 9-Inch Dahlgrens have covers over their sights. Library of Congress photo: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016807826/
8-Inch Rifle Number 30 aboard USS Kearsarge circa 1890. Detail of above photo. Note the sight covers over the rear and forward sights.
8-Inch Rifle Number 32 in Lambertville, New Jersey. Note that (as with most preserved cannons) the sights have been removed).
8-Inch Rifle Number 45 (originally 11-Inch Dahlgren Number 64) as previously displayed beside USS Yorktown, CV10. Note that two of the four Patriots Point 8-Inch Rifles have their forward blade sight in place as well as the mounting for the rear sight. The four 8-Inch Rifles are mounted on a different type of carriage than the USS Kearsarge rifles and the Lambertville (former USS Richmond) rifle. It is said that the four Patriots Point rifles were on USS Lancaster.
A slightly different view aboard USS Kearsarge circa 1890. Photo is captioned “Sunday Morning Services”. Library of Congress photo: https://www.loc.gov/item/2016807827/
Detail of left trunnion from above photo. I believe I read 1878 as the date.
Left Trunnion of 8-Inch Rifle Number 32 of USS Richmond in Lambertville, New Jersey
8-Inch Rifles Number 12 and 16 (formerly 11-Inch Dahlgrens number 182 and 186) at the University of Maine. (Subject of a future post)
Compare the 5-Inch trunnion length of 8-Inch Rifle Number 12 (left) with the 9-Inch trunnions of 11-inch Dahlgren Number 384. Also note that as part of the conversion the firing lock lugs were removed as the 8-Inch rifle was intended to be fired with a friction primer.
Below: Note that of the two 8-Inch Rifles at the University of Maine, one is missing the pin of the cascabel.
The distinctive concentric rings of the 8-Inch Rifle conversions is seen here in one of the Patriots Point rifles. The portion painted red is the wrought-iron sleeve. The outermost ring is the original Dahlgren barrel, and the ring in between is a locking ring that held the two components together.
By comparison, the 9-Inch Dahlgren’s muzzle lacks the concentric rings. The bore is also a greater proportion of the whole. Photo of the 9-Inch Fort McClary Dahlgren.
8-Inch Muzzle Loading Rifles salvaged from USS Trenton, USS Nipsic, and USS Vandalia after the three ships sank in the 1889 Samoan hurricane. The cannons are recognizable as 8-Inch MLR due to the “concentric rings” on the muzzle face due to the cannon being composed of an inner sleeve, an outer shell, and a ring at the muzzle which held the two pieces together. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-97000/NH-97997.html
The difficulties encountered throwing Number 30 over the side of USS Kearsarge
The account of Lieutenant Burns T. Walling in Proceedings makes two statements I’d like to examine after viewing these 8-Inch rifles:
Stories have been told in the service of the difficulty of throwing one of these 8-inch converted guns over the side, and it was more than corroborated in our case, for it required the hardest kind of effort on the part of forty men for one hour and a quarter to accomplish it with a ten degree heel at the start.
tried it again with a tackle to the gig's strongback, the strongback buckled but the gun held on; next hooked the main and mizzen pendant tackles, but could not get a strap to hold without putting in the cascabel pin, a rather dangerous experiment if not rendered absolutely necessary. Finally the pin was put in, all hands manned the tackle and the gun went over unreeving the tackles with a rush, the blocks smoking.
Regarding the 8-Inch Rifle being especially difficult to throw overboard:
The 8-Inch Rifle is about 1,500 pounds heavier than the 11-Inch Dahlgren. (Surviving 8-Inch Rifles range from 17,230 pounds to 17,380 pounds. Surviving 11-Inch Dahlgrens run from 15,718 pounds to 16,040 pounds.)
The 8-Inch rifle had a trunnion length of 5-Inches vs. 9-Inches long for the original 11-Inch Dahlgren
I can imagine both of those differences with the original 11-Inch model making it more difficult to throw the cannon over the side. I do not know to what extent the trunnions were used in such a process, but there would be less for ropes to wrap around than on an unmodified Dahlgren.
Also, the 8-Inch Rifle was about 8,000 pounds heavier than the 9-Inch Dahlgrens carried aboard USS Kearsarge. If this was the comparison, I can certainly understand the rifle seeming more difficult to move.
The note that the cannon was thrown overboard with the pin in the cascabel means that the full 17,284 pounds of the tube would be pulling on that rope as it went over the side - hence the “blocks smoking”. Had the operation been able to be accomplished with the pin missing, the cannon would have slid away from the rope.
Item near the wreck site of USS Kearsarge. 2015 photo by Nicasio Howard. Image courtesy of Dr. William Gomez Pretel. In my estimation, this image shows an 8-Inch Rifle - possibly lying inverted upon the sea floor. Note the short trunnion. This cannon seems to be separated from the main debris field. Also, this Dahlgren appears to have the cascabel pin in place. I would very tentatively identify this as a photo of 8-Inch Rifle Number 30 - the aft pivot gun thrown over the side during the initial grounding.
The current disposition of USS Kearsarge’s 1894 armament
The research of Dr. William Gomez Pretel in his dissertation and subsequent article make a convincing case that the wreckage found on Roncador Cay includes that of USS Kearsarge. I would recommend that you read both works.
In the dissertation the reader will find several photographs. They were taken by Nicasio Howard, a seventy year old experienced local fisherman from Old Providence Island. Mr. Howard has since died. The photos were passed to Dr. Gomez Pretel who has given permission for them to be posted here.
As Dr. Gomez Pretel stated in email communications with me, the identity of the wreck and the cannons that may be seen there will not be known until a full archeological study of the site may be done. As the site is under Columbian jurisdiction and as a wreck of the United States Navy is also covered by US laws, it may be some time before such a study can take place - especially given the remoteness of the site. Additionally, since there is abundant interest in shipwrecks in the area due to the potential of finding literal “Spanish gold”, the protections of these marine archeological sites are taken very seriously.
An 8-Inch Rifle thrown over the side of USS Kearsarge on the evening of February 2nd, 1894. In the coming months the Boston Towboat Company was hired to attempt to salvage the wreck. This salvage was unsuccessful - by the time the salvers arrived the ship had been significantly damaged by fire from the efforts of others to remove metals from the ship.
In the photos below, two or three of the Dahlgrens - I believe the 9-Inch Dahlgrens - are in very close proximity. To me they look as if they were placed together deliberately - possibly as the result of salvage work that was begun but eventually abandoned.
Again, any formal identification must wait on a survey of the site. However, in the photos of Mr. Howard, I see two 8-Inch rifles and at least three 9-Inch Dahlgrens. This is consistent with the reported and photographed armament of the ship.
Item near the wreck site of USS Kearsarge. 2015 photo by Nicasio Howard. Image courtesy of Dr. William Gomez Pretel. In my estimation, this image shows a different 8-Inch Rifle than the above photo. Again note the short trunnions. This rifle appears to still have the elevating screw running through the cascabel. The mounting points for the sights may also be visible. The cascabel pin may not be in place. I would again offer the very tentative identification of this cannon as Number 31 - the forward pivot gun.
Item near the wreck site of USS Kearsarge. 2015 photo by Nicasio Howard. Image courtesy of Dr. William Gomez Pretel. This image is thought to be of the same item as the above photo but viewed from the other side. In my estimation, this image shows an 8-Inch Rifle. The photo may (or may not) show the concentric rings of the rifle at the muzzle and the smaller diameter bore in relationship to the entire muzzle face. It is possible that 8-Inch projectiles are also in this photo.
Items near the wreck site of USS Kearsarge. 2015 photo by Nicasio Howard. Image courtesy of Dr. William Gomez Pretel. I believe this image shows at least three 9-Inch Dahlgrens. At least two of them seem to have the longer trunnions consistent with the 9-Inch Dahlgrens photographed in 1890.
Map of Roncador Bank as found in the October 1894 issue of Proceedings. https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofuni1894unit/page/680/mode/2up
Works consulted for this post include:
Canney, Donald L. The Old Steam Navy: Frigates, Sloops, and Gunboats, 1815-1885. Naval Institute Press, 1990.
Cooke, Augustus Paul. A Text Book of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery Prepared for the Use of Cadet Midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy, Second Edition. John Wiley & Son, 1880.
Gomez Pretel, William & Farrell, Erik. (2024). The Introduction of American Naval Ordnance in the Caribbean Sea in the Late Modern Period: Operational dimensions and American expansion. The Mariner s Mirror. 110. 282-299. 10.1080/00253359.2024.2371198.
Gomez Pretel, William. (2022). An Interdisciplinary Study on the Wreck of the USS Kearsarge in Roncador Cay.
Gomez Pretel, W.; Carvajal Diaz, A.; Jeong, M. “Combining Historical, Remote-Sensing, and Photogrammetric Data to Estimate the Wreck Site of the USS Kearsarge.” Heritage 2023, 6, 2308–2332. https:// doi.org/10.3390/heritage6030122
Olmstead, Edwin, Stark, Wayne E., Tucker, Spencer C. The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Museum Restoration Service, 1997.
Ripley, Warren, Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War (4th Edition). The Battery Press, 1984.
Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Naval Institute Press, 1989.
Walling, Burns T. “The Wreck of the Kearsarge: A Narrative” Proceedings. October 1894 Vol. 20/4/72
