A 42-Pounder, Pattern 1845, which has been banded and rifled is displayed in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania

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A US Army 42-Pounder, Pattern 1845, Seacoast Gun which was banded and rifled during the American Civil War is displayed in front of the Civil War Memorial in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The 42-Pounder, which weighed about 8,500 pounds in its original, unbanded smoothbore state, was a popular cannon for conversion into a rifle by both North and South. As Olmstead et al. points out, of the 29 known survivors of the type, just over half have been rifled and/or banded.

This 42-Pounder was cast by West Point Foundry in 1859. It is registry number 126 (as seen on the muzzle face).

The cannon is mounted in front a monument to the Soldiers and Sailors of the Union which was dedicated on July 4th, 1901. According to a 2010 article in The Daily Item, representatives of every Grand Army of the Republic post within fifty miles sent a delegation to the dedication which brought thousands of spectators to Lewisburg.

Photos of the monument may be seen on the Historical Marker Database.

On September 20th, 1901, the Lewisburg Journal reported that the cannon had arrived. The newspaper article wrote,

“This week there arrived at Lewisburg over the Reading railroad a large cannon consigned to the county, from the War Department, and it will be erected on the plot of the Soldier's Monument.

The cannon weighs over five tons, and came from Fort Mifflin, along the Delaware below Philadelphia.

The G.A.R. first made application for a piece of ordnance from the war department to be placed on the monument plot. The G.A.R. had already been supplied, and the department could supply the cannon through a gift to the county. This was easily arranged and the piece was shipped.

The cannon is a 42-pounder, and weighs over five tons. The cannon will be placed on the monument plot at the corner of Third street and University Avenue. The cannon will be mounted on stone trunnions and placed in a substantial and permanent manner.

Twenty large ten-inch shells arrived from the Pittsburg arsenal. They will be mounted on the plot.

In removing the cannon from the car, the cannon started to roll down the skids and over the wagon. It landed on the ground and owing to the weight of the bulky mass of metal considerable difficulty will be had in loading it again.”

Three unbanded rifles survive aboard USS Cairo (which was originally built for the US Army). The US Army used rifled 42-Pounders, sometimes referred to as “84-Pounders” in the bombardment of Fort Pulaski. On the other hand, the Confederacy used the type for seacoast defense. Of the eighteen barbette mounted cannons in action at Fort Sumter on April 7th, 1863, six were rifled 42-Pounders, more than any other type, and one remains at the fort.

While I have not found out for certain whether this 42-Pounder was rifled by the United States or the Confederacy, I strongly lean towards the former. It came from Fort Mifflin. The rifling looks more like the work of a Northern shop, though James Eason’s foundry in Charleston did similar work on 10-Inch Columbiads. Determining whether the band is a single piece (seen in Northern bands) or composed of rings (common in Confederate guns), would help further identify the province of the piece.

If this is a Union banded and rifled 42-Pounder, it demonstrates that even the North could not manufacture enough modern Parrotts and Rodmans to arm every fort. However, even in 1865 banded and rifled 42-Pounders could be found mounted in the Confederacy’s most important fortifications alongside more capable but too few in number 10-Inch Columbiads and Brooke Rifles. During the Civil War, Fort Mifflin was very much a secondary work which spent a portion of the war as a prison camp.