Comments on: Turning Black Powder into Gold

By: Pati Nagle

Pati Nagle — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:28:20 +0000

Thanks, Laura!

By: Laura Ware

Laura Ware — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:19:22 +0000

Wow Pati, what a cool way to get experience for your writing! Thanks for sharing this!

By: Pati Nagle

Pati Nagle — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:41:22 +0000

I think the guy who held the horses was number 8. He was also keeping an eye on the caisson and the spare artillery chests, and would of course take on other jobs if his comrades were killed or wounded.

Artillery had the highest casualties of any branch of the army, mostly because when a cannon barrel exploded, which they did when they got overheated, it would take out a whole crew or more.

Rebecca, LOL about the malt-o-meal! What a hoot! Our guys use flour in their blanks. Makes good smoke, but it doesn’t smell like breakfast.

By: rebecca

rebecca — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:15:40 +0000

I saw a small scale civil war reenactment a few weeks ago. Cavalry. Very impressive. I didn’t get the smell of the black powder though because they’d packed their blank rounds with malt-o-meal. Smelled like breakfast. They did have a canon and a Gatling gun though. I was surprised how loud the cannon really was. That is so cool that you got to actually load and fire a cannon! Thanks for sharing the experience.

By: Adrian Phoenix

Adrian Phoenix — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:57:31 +0000

Very cool, Pati. This is a fascinating subject and I learned something new today — that chart about which cannoneer does what when their comrades get wounded or killed!

Adrian

By: Gerald M. Weinberg

Gerald M. Weinberg — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:35:31 +0000

Elting Morrison, the historian, wrote about how, up until WW II, gun crews included a man whose function had been forgotten. Basically, he stood back when the cannon was about to be fired, with his hands in a raised position about shoulder high. Inquiry among old cannoneers finally revealed that his job was to hold the horses–which hadn’t been used for many, many years.

By: Estella

Estella — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:18:24 +0000

Interesting post. I never knew it took so many men to man a cannon.