Up until the War Between the States, cannons in widespread use were generally bronze or cast iron, muzzle-loading, smoothbore guns. At the end of the War, the commonly used cannons would still be bronze or cast iron, muzzle-loading, smoothbore guns.  The War Between the States did not end the day of the bronze, smooth-bore, muzzle-loading cannon.  By War’s end, though, it was apparent that the next generation of guns would be breech-loading rifles made of steel. This was not exactly a news flash by then, though.

The Crimean War had revealed the multitudinous drawbacks of traditional muzzle-loading artillery pieces made of bronze or cast iron. Though the shortcomings of traditional muzzle-loading artillery pieces were evident, the end of the Crimean War signaled the end of most financial interests in creating or developing a better gun. Continued development of artillery pieces, as history and experience have borne out time and time again, took place at a rather slow pace after the Crimean War because governments lacked the impetus of a war that required better and more deadly weaponry to achieve and maintain supremacy by one side or the other. 

Many who are involved in the design or manufacturing process will contend today that "there are some problems that can't be solved by throwing money at them".  That was not the case with the development of better ordnance.  It would take money - lots of money - to develop and test cannons that would have the killing accuracy and killing power so vital to winning a modern war.  That was true in the years between the Crimean War and the War Between the States just as it is now.

One of the innovations that had come about during the Crimean War was the introduction of the reporter on the field, the "war correspondent".  Since the armies did not - and could not humanly - engage in battle every single day, the war correspondents found themselves challenged to find subject matter that would be of interest at home. The long lulls between engagements were horribly boring for the war correspondents.  For the soldiers, those seeming "lulls" included the logistical horrors of moving and supplying armies.  For the war correspondents, they provided time to consider - and write about - the battle-revealed deficiencies of artillery pieces; the logistical difficulties of transporting the enormously heavy artillery pieces through mud and muck, moved by sheer dint of mule, horse, and sometimes human muscle; and deficiencies in artillery pieces.  Those deficiencies were, thanks to the war correspondents, to quickly become public knowledge and a matter of public interest.

A number of manufacturers saw from those between-battle reports an opportunity to solve problems with technology they were developing or believed they could develop.  Many manufacturers sought to introduce the world of artillery to the age of the Industrial Revolution, but governments by and large lacked the impetus that only wartime could lend; an impetus that would compel them to take an active and financial interest in improving cannonery.

Without the need for military victory - gained, of course, through superior arms - there was little reason that governments could comfortably justify spending the people’s money on better weapons that would not be used right away.   Still, manufacturers and interested persons continued to tinker and test new designs and offer their intellectual property for sale to those government officials with whom they could create an interest. By the time of the War Between the States, a number of new and novel ideas were being developed and produced.  The voracious appetite of the two armies for cannons caused the battlefields of the War to become the test sites of many of these unproven concepts.

Even with war as an accelerant, though, the experiments in artillery that made it into the field were in the minority when compared with the total number of artillery pieces used. Most artillery pieces in use during the War were truly not appreciably different from those used in the Crimean War. Common to both the Crimean War and the War Between the States were the 6-pounder; the 12-pounder; the 12-pound howitzer; and the 24-pounder.

The 6-pounder and its two-wheeled carriage weighed approximately 1750 pounds, and fired a 6-pound ball a distance of roughly 1500 yards. The 12-pounder howitzer was shorter, weighed about 1700 pounds, and fired a 9-pound ball 1000 yards. The 12-pounder gun was the same caliber as the 12-pounder howitzer (4.62 inches), but was 6 1/2 feet long, weighed 2900 pounds, and fired a 12-pound ball 1700 yards; and the 24-pounder howitzer had a 5.8 inch caliber, weighed 2500 pounds, and fired an 18-pound ball 1400 yards.

Early in the life of artillery pieces, the guns were given names that reflected the country's leader, the maker, or other arbitrarily-chosen nomenclature.   In the 1840’s, the US Army adopted a simple system of ordnance. It included: 6- and 12-pounder field guns; 12-, 24-, and 32-pounder field howitzers; 18- and 24-pounder siege and garrison guns; and 32- and 42-pounder sea-coast guns. Columbiads and mortars were later added to constitute the coastal defense ordnance. Prior to the War, this system was modified by the selection of the light 12-pounder as the field weapon of choice. This system was soon obsolete as a result of necessity and technology, though.

The War Between the States necessitated an unprecedented sudden, massive mobilization of resources.  Considering how the ordnance manufacturers reacted, it would seem as if the War took the political and manufacturing world by surprise.  In fact, rumblings and rumors of war had been reverberating for years before the War's advent, and it would seem to us today to have been a strong indicator that some form of military action would inevitably result.  However, financial resources make industrial wheels spin, and until orders were placed for ordnance, no manufacturer was so wealthy as to be able to manufacture massive stores of cannons and other arms in anticipation of a war that may, had Lincoln not been elected, never have happened.

The urgent need brought on by the War impacted the field artillery by forcing into service an extraordinary variety of pieces that ranged widely from outdated and outmoded ordnance to experimental models, thus breaking the nice, neat little paradigm that the US Army had established for its pieces.

All that not withstanding, a relatively small number of makers and models of cannons can be identified as the foundational workhorses of the War.

There are two primary divisions of cannons to consider when discussing ordnance.  The first division is according to construction of the piece and its method of delivering a projectile to a target; the second division being the mission, or target, of the cannon. The former is design-determinate, the latter being the product of design and size.

All cannons were designed for relatively long-range use, at least in comparison with rifles and pistols. Consequently, the combination of a long barrel and a large charge of gunpowder were necessary to accomplish that end. Cannons were manufactured initially as smoothbore weapons, and later technological developments allowed the tubes to be rifled.

Howitzers are a short-to-medium range weapon, typically smoothbore, the designed intent being to fire at relatively short range, and to describe a higher arc than cannons. In practice, however, the distinction based on the arc of the charges fired between cannons and howitzers was relatively slim.  Both cannons and howitzers had carriages that did not allow a noticeably different amount of elevation adjustment between them. Using a smaller charge naturally limited the effective range of the weapon, but the offsetting benefit was to make the piece smaller and lighter. Howitzers proved to be ideal for service where, due to their relatively small size and weight, moving a howitzer over mountains and under difficult travel conditions would not be the chore that moving a cannon would be.  One smaller howitzer type was specifically designated for mountain service, the howitzer and carriage readily disassembled to be carried by pack animals on narrow trails.

It should be noted that the drill for cannoneers manning a howitzer is different in a number of respects from that of a cannon.

Mortars, on the other hand, are even more limited in range than the howitzer. The short-tube mortar was designed to throw its projectiles high into the air so that they would arch down onto their target at relatively short range. The killing speed of the ammunition was due to its fall, not from the gunpowder. As a result, the powder charge necessary for a mortar was small indeed. A few test mortars were rifled; almost universally, mortars were smoothbores. Mortars were most efficacious as siege weapons.  

Like the howitzer, the drill for a mortar is different from that of a cannon. Many re-enacting companies - ours included - refuse to use mortars or allow their use on the firing line proximous to us because they are so inherently dangerous to the cannoneer.

Siege and garrison guns were a good deal larger than the cannons used by the Field Artillery. They were often put into place to attack or defend fortifications. Known as siege guns when attacking and garrison guns when defending a fortification, all but the largest mortars were thus categorized.

Columbiads fire an exceptionally heavy projectile a long distance with a high trajectory, a feat requiring a heavy charge with a long barrel. Columbiads were used for coastal defense against ships in the early days of our nation, and many remained in service at the beginning of the War.

The largest cannons and all Columbiads must be categorized separately as a coastal defense group. The guns had limited mobility or no mobility, practically speaking, because of their enormous size and weight. In many cases, they were permanently placed.

The smoothbore preceded the rifled cannon. Without question, rifling the tube was to be seen as a significant advancement in the manufacture and use of artillery. However, the efficacy of smoothbore cannons should not be dismissed or discounted. In April 1864, a report listed the 5th Company - Washington Artillery of New Orleans as having four twelve-pounder Napoleons and forty-eight serviceable horses. With four bronze, smoothbore Napoleons, though, they did not consider themselves somehow at a disadvantage. Cannoneers in general - including those of the Washington Artillery - considered the smoothbore bronze Napoleons to be the best all-around gun for firing shell with fuze, solid shot, grape, and canister. Accurate up to a thousand yards, the claim of 5th Company - Washington Artillery was that "in the hands of Corporal Alex Allain, Charlie Fox, Oscar Legare, or other gunners, we faced many a Parrott rifle in artillery duels with confidence."

Rifling barrels was not a new or novel concept by the time of the War.   Spiral grooves cut into the cannon's bore made the projectile fly true by lending "spin" to the projectile, a concept we hear commonly referred to in football today as the "spiral" on a football when it's thrown.  Just as with a football, the spinning projectile not only described a more true path of travel, but was also went further. 

Knowing that rifled tubes were more accurate, on average, than their smoothbore kin was not a great deal of help, though.  While it might seem that rifling the smoothbore bronze tubes would be a prudent and intelligent step forward, it proved not to be an effective modification.  The frictive force of fired ammunition made of metal harder than the tube itself resulted in wearing down the rifling in the bronze tubes.  Bronze is, after all, a fairly soft, malleable metal.

Smoothbore weapons re-bored with rifling early in the War soon proved to be less effective than before their re-boring.  As the rifling wore down and the projectiles' accuracy became poorer and poorer, it became evident to all that rifling bronze tubes was a self-defeating modification. Rifled cannon required a harder metal than bronze.  While it had the strength to withstand the explosive forces from within and was a terrific metal to use for casting, it simply was unsuitable for rifling.

Cast iron, though harder and able to retain rifling well, was just too brittle without some form of reinforcement, and that would come with reinforcing bands strategically placed.  While Robert Parrot was not the first to have that idea, nor the first to execute it, he was the first to successfully sell the idea and get it into production in significant numbers. Rifled tubes would not dominate the ordnance of the War Between the States, but the advantages of a rifled barrel were apparent.   Clearly, they would be the wave of the future for artillery if designers could just develop the right metal or manufacturing method for the job.

The advantages of loading a cannon from the breech were also highly evident to the cannoneers who stood at the face of the muzzle to clean and load their pieces. Breechloaders were to be the next major development in artillery after the War. A breech-loading cannon required a mechanism able to withstand the explosive force of firing without losing the ability to be serviced quickly and efficiently in order to discharge the next round. To accomplish that, radical improvements in traditional materials and machining would be required, machining that would need to achieve an exceptionally high level of precision.

Those improvements would come as a result of the War, but they would not have a material effect on the outcome of the War Between the States.