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The 3-inch ordnance rifle, model 1861 was a wrought iron muzzleloading rifled cannon that was adopted by the United States Army in 1861 and widely used in field artillery units during the American Civil War.
Field artillery in the American Civil War refers to the artillery weapons, equipment, and practices used by the artillery branch to support infantry and cavalry forces in the field. It does not include siege artillery , use of artillery in fixed fortifications, coastal or naval artillery .
In the period before the Civil War, a U.S. Army light artillery battery was organized with four M1841 6-pounder field guns and two M1841 12-pounder howitzers. [1] The field gun fired solid iron cannon balls in a flat trajectory to smash its targets [2] while the howitzer was designed to lob hollow shells into massed formations or fortifications. [3]
The M1841 6-pounder field gun was a bronze smoothbore muzzleloading cannon that was adopted by the United States Army in 1841 and used from the Mexican–American War to the American Civil War. It fired a 6.1 lb (2.8 kg) round shot up to a distance of 1,523 yd (1,393 m) at 5° elevation.
The 14-pounder James rifle or James rifled 6-pounder or 3.8-inch James rifle was a bronze muzzle-loading rifled cannon that was employed by the United States Army and the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
The 10-pounder Parrott rifle, Model 1861 was a muzzle-loading rifled cannon made of cast iron that was adopted by the United States Army in 1861 and often used in field artillery units during the American Civil War.
Heavy artillery during the Civil War consisted of siege artillery, garrison artillery, and coastal artillery. Siege and garrison artillery were larger versions of field artillery, mounted on heavyweight carriages which allowed them very limited mobility: the M1839 24-pounder smoothbore was the largest one which could still be moved by road.
This type of "canon obusier", commonly called in English the 12-pounder Napoleon Model 1857, was the primary cannon used in the American Civil War. [2] [3] Over 1,100 such Napoleons were manufactured by the North, and 600 by the South. [4] At Gettysburg, 142 out of 360 Union guns (39%) were Napoleons.