8-Inch Brooke Smoothbore, S-26, at Gainesville, Alabama
8-Inch Brooke Smoothbore, S26, may be found beside the Old Cemetery in Gainesville, Alabama
An 8-Inch Double Banded Brooke Smoothbore, S26, manufactured at the Selma Naval Gun Foundry in 1863-1864 may be found beside the Old Cemetery in Gainesville, Alabama. S26 was cast as a 6.4-Inch Brooke Rifle. According to Messers Olmstead, Stark, and Tucker, S26 was one of three blocks (raw castings) intended to be produced as 6.4-inch rifles which encountered difficulties during machining but were successfully salvaged as 8-inch smoothbores. S26 is the only survivor of the three Selma produced 8-Inch Brooke Smoothbores.
It is marked “10370” on the left trunnion, indicating its finished weight in pounds.
As an 8-Inch Smoothbore, it would have fired the same approximately 64-pound round shot or 50-pound explosive shell as an 8-Inch Columbiad. Compared to the 6.4-Inch Brooke Rifle S26 was originally intended to be, the 8-Inch smoothbore would have fired slightly lighter shot and shell with a little less accuracy and range, but an 8-Inch smoothbore would also be more effective in firing grapeshot or cannister when those projectiles were required.
According to the granite monument placed beside the cannon in 2017, S26 was delivered to Mobile June 27th, 1864. It was then shipped up the Tombigbee River to Hernando Bluff near Gainesville, Alabama. At the end of the war S26 and another cannon were pushed into the river to prevent capture.
The monument records that around 1876 a United Confederate Veterans Camp retrieved S26 from the river and mounted it in the Old Cemetery in Gainesville.
The cemetery is the site of around 200 graves of Confederate and Union Civil War soldiers. The vast majority of the graves are marked as “unknown.” From what I understand, Gainesville was the site of Buckner Hospital during the war and most of the graves come from soldiers who died there.
Gainesville, now a town of 172 according to the 2020 census, had 1,500 residents in 1850. The small town includes a significant number of surviving structures from the 1840s and 1850s. More on these historic buildings can be found here: https://www.ruralswalabama.org/towns/gainesville/
The cannon’s foundry number, S26, may be seen marked on the sight bases and muzzle.
The cannon’s foundry number, S26, may be seen marked on the sight bases and muzzle.
“64” is marked on the trunnions - perhaps from when this cannon was expected to be a 6.4-inch rifle. “10370” would be the finished weight in pounds.
The muzzle is also marked S26.
The Monument beside the cannon
The cemetery also includes a monument to the “Confederate Dead” amid the headstones.
A photo taken in 2011 shows the Brooke beside the monument in the cemetery. Altairisfar (Jeffrey Reed), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
