The 60-Pounder Breech Loader of USS Kearsarge

Nov 28

US Navy 60-Pounder Breechloader at Trophy Park at Norfolk Naval Shipyard

A US Navy 60-Pounder Breech Loader which served aboard USS Kearsarge from about 1880 to 1886 is displayed at Trophy Park at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. This gun was originally manufactured as a muzzle loading 60-Pounder (5.3-Inch) Parrott Rifle, Registry Number 61, at West Point Foundry in 1865. The 60-Pounder was a type introduced in 1864. At around 5,400 pounds, it seems to have been intended to fill a gap in the Parrott system between the 30-Pounder (USN models weigh 3,500 pounds) and the 100-Pounder (about 9,700 pounds).

The conversion to a breech loader involved cutting off the original breech at the base ring. The gun was then bored out at the breech to accept a steel liner which ran roughly to the trunnions. The rear section of the steel liner was threaded into the original cast iron tube. The gun was then given a steel interrupted screw breech block (see page 237 of the 1880 edition of Augustus Paul Cooke's A Text-book of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, Volume 1.) 60-Pounder BLR Number 61 is missing its breech block. Two 60-Pounders with breech blocks in place may be seen in Laconia, New Hampshire and another in Oyster Bay, New York.

The 60-Pounder seems to have been the standard gun carried aboard the topgallant forecastle of US Navy sloops and gunboats during the 1870s and 1880s. It was carried on a shifting-pivot, directing bar carriage. The directing bar carriage was only used for the 60-Pounder. The main portion of the carriage was similar to the two-wheeled Marsilly Carriage used on broadside positions. The “D.B.” carriage had a guide frame for the bar underneath the carriage. The bar mounted two recoil absorbing buffers which prevented the gun from recoiling too far on its carriage. (see page 375-376 of the 1880 edition of Augustus Paul Cooke's A Text-book of Naval Ordnance and Gunnery, Volume 2.)

Based on 1888 plans of Kearsarge shown in the a 2024 article by Dr. William Gomez Pretel, it seems that pivot sockets were placed in the deck to allow the 60-Pounder to be pivoted to fire on either broadside, but there does not seem to have been provision in that ship for using the 60-Pounder as a chase gun.

The logbook of USS Kearsarge for July of 1883 to January of 1884 lists 60-Pounder Number 61 as part of the armament. It is noted as being mounted on a Directing Bar Pivot Carriage. Other logbooks of Kearsarge do not note the specific registry number of the 60-Pounder carried, but a 60-Pounder of 5,400 pounds was carried from 1880 to 1886, making it likely that Number 61 was carried throughout this period. At the time of her 1879 recommission, Kearsarge was equipped with 60-Pounder Number 89 - seemingly still a muzzle loader. When she was recommissioned in 1888, she carried a different 60-Pounder, and she was lost with still another 60-Pounder, Number 99, in 1894.

USS Kearsarge was one of the most famous vessels of the US Navy during the American Civil War for her defeat of CSS Alabama on June 19th, 1864 in the “Battle of Cherbourg.” Like USS Hartford, she was maintained by the US Navy in active commission through the 1890s with the intention of preserving her as a relic. Unfortunately she was lost on active service in 1894.

Trophy Park also displays US Navy 60-Pounder Number 56 - showing the type as originally manufactured.