Civil War echos via Long Beach
The California State Military History & Museums Program in Rancho Cordova recently received a pair of circa 1905 3-inch Salute Guns.
The museum believes they were originally part of the old San Diego Army Barracks (which closed in 1921 and became the property of the city in 1938) before standing guard in front of the Long Beach Seventh Street National Guard Armory from the mid-1930s until 2020.
The Long Beach Armory, 854 East 7th Street, Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California, before its closure in 2020. Note the signal guns.
These guns are the last remnants of one of the best-known (and loved) field guns of the Civil War.
Patented in 1855 by cannon engineer John Griffen, superintendent at Phoenix Iron Co in Pennsylvania, and thus known originally as “The Griffen Gun,” the 3-inch (9.5 pounder) Ordnance Rifle, Model of 1861, became one of the most popular and prolific pieces of light artillery in Union service during the Civil War, with some 1,100 produced– 940 from Phoenix Iron alone. It was lighter (816 pounds) and more accurate than the slightly more common M1857 12-pounder Napoleons and available in better quantities than the 10-pounder M1861 Parrott.
Tidball’s Battery (Battery A, 2nd U.S. Artillery), near Fair Oaks, Va., June 1862 – Lt. Robert Clarke, Capt. John C. Tidball, Lt. William N. Dennison, and Capt. Alexander C.M. Pennington, posing around an M1861 3-inch Ordnance Rifle, PIC (for Phoenix Iron Company) Nr 247 LOC image LC-DIG-cwpb-01024
Starting in 1885, the Army began replacing these Civil War-era guns with more contemporary steel, rifled, breech-loading models, ultimately resulting in the M1897 field piece, which would remain in service until the Great War.
Although a wrought iron muzzle-loading rifled cannon, the Army kept some 300 unconverted M1861 3-inchers on inventory for assorted reasons (primarily as gate guards) through the Spanish-American War, although none deployed to that conflict.
Another 350 usually non-spiked guns, many of which had been sold as surplus through Bannerman’s to local cities and towns, have made their way into the assorted state and National Military Parks since then.
Starting in 1905, the Army made a move to convert its stocks of remaining M1861s to breech-loading saluting guns capable of firing standard 3-inch black powder blank cartridges. They were then mounted on steel pedestal mounts and typically placed on either side of an installation’s flagpole.
Saluting guns, 3-inch, at Fort Worden circa 1930s. Puget Sound Coast Artillery Museum Collection
3-inch M1861/05 Saluting gun, Washington Barracks, Washington, D.C. 1921. Note the breech. NARA 111-SC-000213-ac
From a 1908 War Department Ordnance report
In all, at least 25 were converted by the United States Rapid-Fire Gun and Power Company of Derby, Connecticut, and the balance (about 270) was done by Army cannon works, primarily Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, with the Army allocating $4,600 in 1905 and another $16,000 in 1906 for the conversions.
It was noted that a whopping 13,800 pounds of saluting powder was on hand in Army depots in 1907 (vs 367,183 pounds of smokeless powder for artillery) for use with such guns and many posts, besides lighting them off for special events and on holidays, would fire a “Noon-day gun.”
By the late 1940s, especially with the general contraction of bases following WWII, most of these saluting pieces found their way to the scrap heap.
As for the recently saved California guns, they will soon be installed on either side of the CSMH&MP’s Consolidated Headquarters Complex’s flagpoles.