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The 12-pounder mountain howitzer, illustrated here by Peter W. Gaut, looked like a shortened, downsized cannon. What these little guns lacked in range, the made up for in lightness, handiness and mobility over rugged terrain. |
The Mountain Howitzer
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The 12-pounder mountain howitzer, illustrated here by Peter W. Gaut, looked like a shortened, downsized cannon. What these little guns lacked in range, the made up for in lightness, handiness and mobility over rugged terrain. |
A howitzer is a short-barreled, large-caliber cannon designed to throw shells at a higher trajectory than regular field guns. This makes them useful against enemy troops behind fortifications or concealed in rugged terrain. The mountain howitzer was a special gun, designed on such a small scale that the entire piece could be taken apart and carried on pack animals. Although its 4.62-inch bore could handle the same 12-pounder ammunition as a regular 12-pounder gun, a complete mountain howitzer, including the carriage, wheels and barrel, weighed less than the barrel alone of a larger 12-pounder field gun. Instead of needing a six-horse team like most other Civil War cannons, a mountain howitzer and two ammunition chests could be carried by three mules through trackless forests, across swampy ground, or over rough mountain trails where no other gun could go.
The first mountain howitzers were delivered to the U.S. Army in 1837. Apparently some modifications were made to the first designs, since Civil War ordnance manuals refer to mountain howitzers then in use as Model 1841. The compact cannons were used in the Mexican War and in a number of Indian conflicts from Florida to the West Coast during the antebellum years.
The main manufacturers of mountain howitzers were two Massachusetts firms, Cyrus Alger & Company, of Boston, and James T. Ames, of Chicopee. At the start of the Civil War, the firms were paid an average of $165 apiece for mountain howitzer barrels.
Everything about the mountain howitzer was scaled down. A useful comparison is with the famous Model 1857 12-pounder field gun known as the Napoleon, perhaps the most widely used smoothbore field gun of the war. The Napoleon had a 66-inch-long, 1,227-pound barrel. With wheels 57 inches in diameter, the complete Napoleon with carriage weighed more than 2,300 pounds. The mountain howitzer had a 38-inch-long, 220 pound bronze smoothbore barrel. With its 38-inch wheels, the entire mountain howitzer and carriage weighed only 507 pounds. The price of its small size and portability was its greatly reduced range. A Napoleon - or just about any other Civil War cannon - could throw projectiles hundreds of yards farther than a mountain howitzer. Batteries of other field guns could wreck a mountain howitzer battery without getting a scratch in return. Sibley's dependence on the small guns against heavier Union field guns was probably a factor in the ultimate failure of his New Mexico campaign.
The mountain howitzer was most useful for bands of fast-moving cavalry raiders, who would only be slowed down by dragging heavy guns behind six-horse teams. Long after the war, former Confederate Brig. Gen. Basil Duke, who had served with the famous cavalry general John Hunt Morgan, wrote in praise of the mountain howitzer, "No gun is so well suited in all respects to the wants of cavalry, as these little guns." Duke acknowledged their short range, but felt they could shoot far enough for the kind of battles his cavalry engaged in. Duke found that the mountain howitzers had many useful qualities. The little guns could go anywhere a horse could. They were light enough that foot soldiers could push them along by hand as they fought their way close to the enemy lines. And they also made "a great deal more noise than one would expect from their size and appearance." The nicknames of these guns are "bull pups."
Mountain howitzers generally fired spherical case shot, canister or grapeshot. All of these types of ammunition, which scattered small shot and shell fragments, were effective within the shortened range of the mountain howitzer. Spherical case shot was a hollow, round iron shell, filled with musket balls packed in sulfur with a small bursting charge of gunpowder. Case shot for mountain howitzers carried a load of 82 lead musket balls. The shell was exploded above enemy positions by a fuse. Case shot was usually fired at enemy positions several hundred yards away.
Canister consisted of tin-plated iron cylinders loaded with round shot packed in sawdust. Most Civil War canister contained iron shot, but canister rounds for the mountain howitzer were crammed with a load of 148 .69-caliber lead musket balls. Fuses were not needed for canister. A round of canister burst when the cannon was fired, blasting its load of musket balls out of the muzzle as if fired from a tremendous sawed-off shotgun. Canister was used from distances of about 400 yards to point-blank range. The load of lead from a round of canister made a little mountain howitzer as deadly as any other cannon at close range.
Grapeshot, a load of iron balls wrapped in a bundle of cloth or piled onto a metal frame, had an effect similar to canister. This type of load is mentioned less often in connection with mountain howitzers than the two previous types.
Official regulations called for mountain howitzers to be placed in six-gun batteries with 33 mules, enough pack animals to carry the guns, a spare carriage, tools and gunner's implements, and enough ammunition chests to allow 48 rounds per gun. In practice, mountain howitzers were often placed in four-gun batteries, two gun sections, or even single-gun detachments. Not all were served by artillerymen. Many mountain howitzers were used by cavalry regiments, and a few by infantry units. A number of cavalry regiments had special mountain howitzer companies, manned by a few men from each company in the regiment.
Because mules were nearly always used to carry mountain howitzers by packsaddle, companies with these little guns were sometimes called "jackass batteries." If the terrain permitted, the mountain howitzer could be mounted on its carriage and drawn by means of a pair of shafts by one of the mules. A few units did away with the packsaddles altogether and used a pair of horses to draw the gun.
When it was time to disassemble and pack the mountain howitzer, the first, or shaft, mule carried the gun barrel and the shafts. The second, or carriage, mule bore the carriage, wheels and gunner's implements. A number of other pack animals, the ammunition mules, each carried two wooden chests of ammunition. Regulations called for the shaft mule to lead, followed at 2-yard intervals by the rest. One driver per mule walked to the left of his animal. The ammunition mules were used instead of limbers in rugged country.
To load the mules, three men lifted the barrel onto the packsaddle, which was fitted with special recesses to hold the barrel and trunnions. The carriage was also loaded by three men. To load the ammunition mules, four men simultaneously, lifted two ammunition chests and hooked them onto special chains dangling from the packsaddle. The loads were securely lashed into place. Each mule would carry a load of between 250 and 300 pounds.
The ammunition chest was a long, narrow wooden box with an interior measurement of 32.8 inches long by 4.75 inches wide by 9.35 inches deep. Regulations called for each mountain howitzer ammunition chest to contain a fixed shell, six special case shot, and a round of canister. Made of poplar wood, an ammunition chest weighed 20 pounds empty and 112 pounds when packed. The carriage of the mountain howitzer was built of oak, except for the axle tree, which was made of hickory. The wheels were of oak, and the shafts were made of ash.
When a mountain howitzer was assembled and the shafts detached, the piece was said to be "in battery." Six men - a gunner and five soldiers designated as No.1 through No.5 - made a gun crew for a mountain howitzer. Other, larger fieldpieces often had crews of eight or nine men. Each man had a specific set of duties to perform in firing the piece. The soldiers had to be trained in every position, so that if one fell the rest could pick up his duties.
When the piece was in battery, the ammunition mule stood 15 yards behind the gun; the other mules were lined up behind. The shafts were left near the right wheel, pointing to the rear. Incredibly, there are a few recorded cases of mountain howitzers being fired while still on the back of a mule. The terrified animals, frantically bucked or rolled on the ground trying to rid themselves of the cannons on their backs. One such incident happened at Fort Benton, Mont., in 1864, when some visiting Indians were given a demonstration of the firing of a cannon. A mountain howitzer, still on the back of a mule, was loaded and set to fire by means of a length of fuse instead of the usual friction primer. The hissing fuse scared the mule. Bystanders ran away, threw themselves to the ground, or even jumped into the nearby Missouri River as the panicked mule spun around, pointing the cannon in one direction, then another. Luckily, when the cannon fired, the mule's back was arched so that the shot slammed harmlessly into the ground nearby.
A mountain howitzer battery would be equipped with a small, portable forge that fit inside a crate not much larger than an ammunition chest. This enabled a blacksmith to shoe horses or repair small metal items while in the field. The forge and its frame, which folded up to fit inside the chest, weighed only 31.5 pounds; the bellows weighed 18.25 pounds. The forge chest also contained a few tools and two 10-pound bags of horseshoe nails. The forge chest, the smith's tool chest, and a 25-pound bag of charcoal were carried by a specially designated forge mule.
Another mule carried two chests loaded with carriage maker's tools for emergency repair of the gun carriages - a necessity because mountain howitzers operated in very rugged terrain, and the small carriages were susceptible to damage. The tool chests were the same size as the ammunition chests. They carried a broad selection of carpenter's tools, a few gunner's implements and an assortment of screws, nuts, washers and tacks. The tool chests weighed 45 pounds each when packed.
Although much used in the East, mountain howitzers were perhaps most important in the West, where there were fewer roads, rougher country, and few large cannons. Mountain howitzers were devastating weapons when used against the Indians. Indeed, mountain howitzers were the first cannons ever seen by many Indians.
Mountain howitzers figured prominently in several Indian battles fought during the Civil War years, from fighting at Fort Ridgely, Minn., during the 1862 Sioux Uprising to the infamous Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864. The famous mountain man turned Union general, Christopher "Kit" Carson, credited a pair of mountain howitzers with saving his command during the Battle of Adobe Walls, Texas, on November 25, 1864. Carson's force of about 400 men attacked and overran a Kiowa village before they were confronted by 1,000 Comanche warriors camped nearby. The soldiers barely escaped with their lives after a long, running battle.
After the end of the Civil War, the old 1841 mountain howitzers were used by U.S. troops on the frontier until replaced by newer models. The concept of the mountain howitzer lived on much longer. Mule-borne cannons, later usually referred to as "pack artillery," were used by U.S. forces in the Spanish-American War in 1898, as well as in the subsequent Philippine Insurrection. Modern mountain howitzers were in the arsenals of several of the major powers in World War I. Pack artillery carried by mules served American soldiers as late as the campaigns against the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II.
This article was taken from: Norris, David A. “Confederate Gunners Affectionately Called Their Hard Working Little Mountain Howitzers 'Bull Pups'.” (American’s Civil War, September 1995), 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, and 90. It is used with permission.
James V. Acker, Pres.