The 32-Pounders of 41 Hundredweight of USS Saratoga and CSS Chattahoochee

Sep 13

Two 32-Pounders of 41 Hundredweight are displayed at the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia

Two US Navy 32-Pounders of 41 Hundredweight are displayed at the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia. These two chambered cannon were cast at Cyrus Alger and Company in 1842 for use aboard the sloop of war USS Saratoga.

The two cannons are:

32-Pounder of 41 Hundredweight Number 6, weight 41-1-05 (4,625 pounds)
32-Pounder of 41 Hundredweight (Illegible Registry Number), weight 41-3-32 (4,699 pounds)

USS Saratoga, despite being a fairly small sailing sloop, had a long and distinguished career with the US Navy. In the Mexican American War she was the command of David G. Farragut. She was part of both of Commodore Perry’s voyages to Japan in 1853 and 1854. She served on the African coast in the 1840s and again in 1860-1861 when she captured the slaving ship Nightingale and freed those held aboard. Out of commission during the early stages of the American Civil War, she would recommission in 1863, serving with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. After the war, Saratoga would eventually see service as a training ship - first with the US Navy and then with the Pennsylvania Nautical School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1890 to 1907. She would ultimately be burned as a spectacle for tourists on Revere Beach, Massachusetts in 1908.

Pennsylvania Nautical School Ship Saratoga at Le Havre, France on August 1st, 1900. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-108000/NH-108650.html

A question which I can’t answer at present is how much (if any) of the above history did these two 32-Pounders witness. It’s possible that the two cannons were aboard Saratoga during the Mexican American war under Commander David Farragut. The two cannons were certainly not aboard USS Saratoga at the start of the Civil War (when the sloop was still in African waters). Mostly likely they were taken off at Norfolk at some point in the late 1840s. My guess is that when USS Saratoga recommissioned for service with Commodore Perry in Asia, she was given an updated armament. The cannons were likely among those captured by Virginia at Norfolk in 1861. (I hope to eventually spend time with USN BuOrd records at the National Archives which may answer some of these questions.)

The 32-Pounder of 41 Hundredweight was not manufactured after 1842, it’s place in the “lineup” of US Naval Ordnance being taken by the slightly longer 32-Pounder of 42 Hundredweight. The type seems to have been considered obsolete even by the start of the Civil War. The armament recorded for USS Saratoga at her 1863 recommissioning is six 8-Inch Shell guns of 55 Hundredweight, twelve 32-Pounders of 42 Hundredweight, one 30-Pounder Dahlgren Rifle, two 12-Pounder Rifled Boat Howitzers, and one 12-Pounder Light Boat Howitzer.

The two cannons were recovered with the wreck of CSS Chattahoochee, suggesting that by 1863 they had been shipped to Georgia for the gunboat. A portion of the aft end of Chattahoochee survives along with some of her machinery and many smaller artifacts - all displayed at the National Civil War Naval Museum.

These two cannons are easy to overlook as they are placed next to more visually impressive Dahlgren and Brookes along “Cannon Row” at the museum. However, they represent two of the three survivors of their particularly type (a third being mounted upright in Atlanta). They are a connection to USS Saratoga - a significant ship in her own right that trained multiple generations of US Navy sailors and the bearer of one of the most famous names in US Navy history.

Please make your way to Columbus, Georgia to visit the fantastic collection of the National Civil War Naval Museum!