Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

38 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
Table 5—Artillery Materiel Specified by the Ordnance Board, 1849
Type Weapons
Field 6- and 12-pounder guns (bronze)
12-, 24-, and 32-pounder howitzers (bronze)
12-pounder mountain howitzer (bronze)
Siege and 12-, 18-, and 24-pounder guns (iron)
Garrison 8-inch and 24-pounder howitzers (iron)
8-inch and 10-inch mortars (light) (iron)
Coehorn a 24-pounder mortar (bronze)
16-inch stone mortar (bronze)
Seacoast 32- and 42-pounder guns (iron)
8-inch and 10-inch Columbiads b (iron)
8-inch and 20-inch howitzers (iron)
10-inch and 13-inch mortars (heavy) (iron)
a Coehorn mortars, named after the Dutch inventor Baron van Memmo Coehoorn, were used
by both sides during the Civil War.
b Columbiads were heavy guns invented by Maj. George Bomford.
Source: Alfred Mordecai, Artillery for the United States Land Service, as Devised and Arranged
by the Ordnance Board (Washington, D.C.: J and G. S. Gideon, 1849), p. 3.
horses, and the guns, not having caissons, were hauled with drag ropes. During the
Second Seminole War, Company C, 3d Regiment of Artillery, and Company B, 4th
Regiment of Artillery, were authorized horses in 1837, but only the latter actually
took part in any combat operations. 62
Using surplus horses from the war, Secretary Poinsett decided in 1838 to mount
the four light companies. The first company to receive six new field pieces and the
appropriate number of horses was Company C, 3d Regiment of Artillery, commanded
by Brevet Maj. Samuel Ringgold. 63 Each man was mounted on horseback, with a sixhorse
team drawing each gun. The three remaining companies, organized a year after
Ringgold’s, were equipped as mounted units rather than as horse batteries, meaning
that although the guns were horse-drawn, the cannoneers rode on the carriages or caissons
or they walked. In theory, the mounted units were to be employed with infantry
62 Augustus Buell, “The Cannoneer” (Washington, D.C.: National Tribune, 1890), p. 12. Company
B, 4th Artillery, served briefly as light artillery in the summer of 1837.
63 WD GO 49, 5 Nov 1838.