The 32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds of San Luis Obispo

Oct 24

US Navy 32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds is displayed in the San Luis Cemetery in San Luis Obispo, California. Photo by Erik Brun.

The photos in this post are by Erik Brun. They were originally posted on the Facebook Group “Big Cannon Project” here and are used with permission.

A US Navy Bureau of Ordnance 32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds is displayed in the San Luis Cemetery in San Luis Obispo, California. This 32-Pounder was manufactured at Builders Foundry (Providence, Rhode Island) in 1866. According to the data in a 2000 edition of the registry, it weighed 4,530 pounds as manufactured in 1866. It is US Navy registry number 333. The 32-Pounder is mounted on an original iron Marsilly carriage. (The carriage seems to have been manufactured by “Architectural Ironworks of New York. )

The Type: This type of cannon was designed by the Bureau of Ordnance in 1864 due to a perceived need for lightweight 32-Pounders. In the 1840s and 1850s, relatively light weight 32-Pounders of 27-Hundredweight, 32-Hundredweight, and 42-Hundredweight had been designed to equip the upper decks of US Navy ships. During the Civil War, these lighter 32-Pounders had been used to equip the many merchant ships which had been taken into service and had not been designed for heavy cannon.

The resulting 32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds borrowed the general shape from Admiral Dahlgren’s 9-Inch, 10-Inch, and 11-Inch cannons. However, the 32-Pounders, like the similar 8-Inch Shell guns of 6,500 Pounds, had a simplified ring cascabel. Few if any of this type of cannon would have seen service during the Civil War.

32-Pounder of 4,500 Pounds Number 333: This cannon is noted in the 2000 edition of the registry as surviving aboard USS Kearsarge. USS Kearsarge carried four 32-Pounders of this type in 1870, but none of the weights recorded in her 1870 logbook exactly match the 4,530 pounds of Number 333. Later in the 1870s, 9-Inch Dahlgrens replaced the 32-Pounders on the broadside. It is possible that this cannon was aboard Kearsarge at another time, but I am not certain of that.

The large plaque in front of the cannon states that it was donated by the US Navy to the Fred Steele Post 10, Grand Army of the Republic, in 1892. The cannon was a focal point of memorial day celebrations in San Luis Obispo from 1892 to 1927. Eventually the cannon became neglected. It was eventually restored and placed back on display.

The plaque in front of the cannon gives it the nickname of “Big Bill”.