US Army 20-Inch Rodman at Fort Hancock

May 25

US Army 20-Inch Rodman Number 2 at Fort Hancock

A US Army 20-Inch Rodman is displayed at Fort Hancock at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. This was the second 20-Inch Rodman cast - it bears the registry number “2” on the muzzle. It was cast at Fort Pitt Foundry in 1869 and weighed 115,100 pounds as cast.

Many thanks to William from South Jersey for taking the video from which these stills were taken!

This 20-Inch Rodman was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. According to a National Park Service Article, it doesn’t seem to have been fired. The NPS article states: “At some point after the exposition ended, the No.2 gun ended up at the U.S. Army Sandy Hook Proving Ground, where it sat in storage for many years. In 1903, the commander of Fort Hancock wrote the Army's Chief of Ordnance, requesting that the gun be transferred from the Ordnance Department over to Fort Hancock, operated by the Army's Coast Artillery Corps. The gun was transferred to Fort Hancock where it was displayed "as a monument to the old class of guns," as the Fort Hancock commander referred to it. The move probably saved this rare cannon from being scrapped.”

In Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War, Warren Ripley writes of the first 20-Inch Rodman, “Mounted at Fort Hamilton, New York, the piece was fired only a few times since no target could be found sufficiently tough to resist the impact of 1,080 pound solid shot propelled by 100-pound service charges. It was fired four times after mounting and four more in 1867. The latter practice, with 125 pounds of powder, gave a range of 6,144 yards and with 200 pounds, 8001 yards. Elevation in both instances was 25 degrees” (Ripley, pg. 80).

For comparison, the much more common 15-Inch Rodman weighed about 50,000 pounds, fired a solid shot weighing 440 pounds, and was fired using a service charge of 50-60 pounds of black powder (though in later years the 15-Inch was authorized to use up to 100 pounds of propellant).

See my post of the 20-Inch Rodman at Fort Hamilton for more information on the type.