Historical Collection Highlights

On 10 October 1863, Theodore Allen of the 7th Ohio Cavalry remembered coming under fire from an unusual weapon at Blue Springs, Tennessee. “The first shots went over our heads just high enough to miss even the tallest men in the regiment, but it was not the firing of the cannon which got on every man’s nerves. It was the dreadful, fear-engendering noise that the ‘thing’ just overhead produced which fairly took every man’s breath away.” Allen equated the noise to the “singing of a nail swiftly thrown through the air” only “multiplied ten thousand times and then some more” concluding that the Confederates “had some new-fangled machine for throwing railroad spikes at us.” As the men flattened themselves against the earth, the “infernal battery filled the air with a ceaseless rain of about two hundred shot a minute.” Even though Allen professed the skirmish was minor, he and the other men “smoothed the goose flesh from [their] skin.”

This strange rapid-firing artillery piece was the Williams Gun, a smoothbore, hand-cranked, breech-loaded cannon that fired a one-and-a-half inch ball or cannister shot. Designed by Captain David Williams for the Confederate Army in 1861, it was reportedly first used at the Battle of Seven Pines in May 1862. The gun required three men to operate it: one to load, another to place the percussion cap, and the last to work the crank. When in the forward position, the crank opened the action and the loader placed a paper cartridge in the breech. Then the cap was placed and as the crank was turned to the rear position it closed the breech and dropped the hammer, firing the gun. At most, it could fire 40 rounds a minute; with well-aimed shots, 20 rounds a minute was a more realistic rate of fire. Only 42 were produced, and this example, made at Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, is one of four known to still exist.

Confederate veteran H.T. Owen recalled seeing the Williams Gun near Seven Pines accompanied by its inventor. “While awaiting for some other command to file by ours and take position in line of battle, a small cannon halted in front of us for some time, and we got a good look at it. … the barrel was about as big around as a man’s coat sleeve. It carried a round ball about the size of a hen’s egg, and was loaded at the breech.” Still being held in reserve during the battle, Owen and the others “could easily distinguish the rapid reports of the little breech-loader.” A year later, while guarding prisoners in Winchester, VA, Owen reported inquisitive Union officers wanting to know about “the rapid-firing little gun or guns we used on them at Seven Pines,” the weapon clearly having made a lasting impression on the men receiving its fire.