US Navy 32-Pounders at Fort Pike
A US Navy “Gradual Increase” 32-Pounder is displayed at Fort Pike near New Orleans, Louisiana in 2014
Two US Navy "Gradual Increase of the Navy" 32-Pounders were photographed in 2014 at Fort Pike by Jonathan Walsdorf. Many thanks to him for allowing me to share the photos.
According to Olmstead et al., these two cannons were carried aboard USS Columbus. Columbus was the fourth ship of the line completed for the US Navy, and it was larger and ultimately more successful than the first three which had been built during the War of 1812. USS Columbus would serve in the 1820s and early 1830s. After a time as a receiving ship she would commission again in 1842 seeing service in the Mediterranean and East Indian squadrons. She would also participate in the Mexican-American War on the Pacific coast. She returned to Norfolk in 1848 where she would remain in ordinary. In 1861 she was burned to prevent capture alongside USS Delaware, USS Pennsylvania, and the never-completed USS New York.
The two 32-Pounders are US Navy registry numbers 149 and 200 and were cast at Columbia Foundry in 1820 and 1821 respectively. Their weight is marked in hundredweight 59-1-22 (6,658 pounds) and 59-0-5 (6,613 pounds). The other letters on the breech "C.F., I.M., and G.I., stand for "Columbia Foundry" (operated by) John Mason, Gradual Increase. (They and their ships were authorized by Congress under the "Gradual Increase of the Navy" act.)
Although obsolescent in 1861, many of the type remained in storage at Norfolk, and a number were sent to arm forts throughout the southern states. Of the nineteen survivors listed in the registry, seventeen may have been guns which were at Norfolk in 1861, sent elsewhere to arm a fort, and then left in place following the war. I wonder whether the survival of a relatively large number was due to the fact that they US Navy was uninterested in reclaiming them at the end of the war or whether they had been sent to out-of-the-way fortifications or some combination of these or other factors.
These two 32-Pounders were four of the type present at Fort Pike near New Orleans, Louisiana in 1997 when the registry which is in "The Big Guns" was published (Registry numbers 35 and 210 were also there as was 42-pounder Number 169). Fort Pike has been closed to regular visitors since around 2015. It will be open for a car show and festival on Saturday, November 1st sponsored by the Fort Pike Volunteer Fire Department. If anyone is in the New Orleans area and can visit that day, I would love to see photos of the fort and any cannons which remain there.
A US Navy “Gradual Increase” 32-Pounder is displayed at Fort Pike near New Orleans, Louisiana in 2014
