Military
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The army built the South Battery around 1840 while the present Fort Trumbull was under construction. By 1879, this battery held eight cannon of two types, six Rodmans and two Parrotts, and a low protective wall of granite and earth called a parapet shielded the gun crews from enemy fire. In 1879, four smaller siege guns also stood on additional platforms in front of the gun line on the edge of a cove that is now largely filled in. By 1892 they had been removed, and seven mortars had been installed in a line near the present parking lot. The Rodmans and Parrotts fired cannonballs horizontally at the side of a ship, while the mortars fired cannonballs in a steep arc to fall on a ship from above. A magazine for storing ammunition stood on the west side of the line of mortars. As the gun position closest to Long Island Sound, the South Battery held the largest concentration of heavy guns installed at Fort Trumbull in the 1890s.
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New London, Connecticut · United States
