Model 1829 Cannon # 209, affectionately called a 32-pounder because it fired a 32-pound round iron shot, was one of the large cannons used at Forts DeRussy, Henry, Donelson, Pillow, and Island #10. Cast in 1839 at Fort Pitt Foundry in Pennsylvania, it weighs nearly 4 tons, can fire a shot up to 1 1/2 miles, and bears the weight number 7545 stamped on its lower breech. Confederate General Polk had at least 56 cannons of this type among his 140-cannon artillery guarding the Mississippi at Columbus, and the Confederate Army obtained hundreds in 1861 when it seized the U.S. Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia. It is not known whether # 209 was among the cannons Polk left behind when he evacuated Columbus in 1862, though the Union Army and Navy later shipped dozens of captured Confederate cannons there for temporary storage. This cannon and a Confederate 128-pounder were found there after the war ended; during the great flood of 1927 the other cannon fell into the Mississippi River and was never recovered. In the 1930s, during the development of Columbus-Belmont State Park, the Civilian Conservation Corps placed #209 on a replica wooden carriage for exhibit, but in 1943 a large strip of land along the river bluff collapsed and carried the cannon away, leaving it unseen for 55 years.
