Dictator (gun)
The Dictator was a super- heavy mortar used by the United States Army in the Civil War .
Specifications
The Dictator was made in Charles Knapp's Fort Pitt iron foundry in Pittsburgh in 1862 . In terms of both weight and performance, it was the heaviest siege mortar of the Civil War. It weighed 7,765 metric tons , which meant that it could only be laid by rail . A specially reinforced flat wagon had to be built especially for the transport of the Dictator , as freight wagons of conventional construction were too weak to be able to carry the gun.
The iron gun barrel had a length of 134.6 centimeters, the caliber was 13 inches (33 centimeters). The Dictator fired grenades weighing 99.8 kilograms, for which it required a standard propellant charge of 9.1 kilograms of gunpowder . Its effective range at a firing angle of 45 degrees was 3955 meters; According to eyewitness reports, however, the Dictator is said to have thrown a grenade 4,320 meters at least in one case during combat operations near Petersburg .
commitment
The Dictator was only used during the siege of Petersburg in the summer of 1864. Assigned to the G Company of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery , he fired a total of 218 shells at the fortifications of the besieged city between July 9 and September. Despite the extraordinary explosive power of the dreaded projectiles and the considerable destruction caused by each impact, the laborious use of the mortar remained militarily without results.
Whereabouts
The whereabouts of the gun is not completely clear. A number 95 marked 13-inch Civil War mortar, which has been erected as a memorial outside Connecticut Parliament House in Hartford since 1902 , is often referred to as the original Dictator who returned from the 1st Connecticut Heavy after the war was over Artillery is said to have been moved to the capital of their home state. However, it is also argued that the weight of this mortar is not said to be equal to that of the Dictator , so it would only be a slightly lighter gun of a similar type. In this case, the original mortar would be lost and probably no longer exist.
On the battlefield of Petersburg, now designated as a national park, the Petersburg National Battlefield , there is a cast concrete replica made in 1936 at the site of the bastion in which the Dictator was erected in 1864 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ US National Park Service: Report on the production of the dictator replica, 1936 ( Memento of October 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.1 MB)
- ↑ Historical Marker Database: The Dictator ( Memento from October 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )}
- ↑ Cornell University Library: Mortar Dictator, Front of Petersburg, Virginia October, 1864 ( Memento April 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Civil War Talk: The Dictator ( Memento from December 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ CTmonuments.net: 1st. Conn. Heavy Artillery Monument, Hartford ( October 6, 2010 memento on the Internet Archive )