Civil War

This 3” ordnance rifle, a model 1861 cast in 1863 at the Phoenix Iron Company in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was a popular American Civil War weapon because it was easy to transport and safer to fire, with few failures and less risk of bursting. Weighing 816 pounds, it was sold to the New Jersey Militia and reportedly saw action at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on November 25, 1863, as part of the Chattanooga Campaign, where, as artillery in the Army of the Cumberland, it helped the US Army secure victory. Ironworking in this part of Pennsylvania stretched back nearly 200 years, and the rifle reflected a series of innovations: John Griffen's 1855 patent for the first 3” wrought iron ordnance rifle, David T. Yeakel's April 1862 patent improving structural issues by adding sheets of hot iron around a cold mandrel, and Samuel J. Reeves's December 1862 patent at Phoenix Iron Company using a heated mandrel and a breech formed with a block screwed into the piece. During the Civil War, the US Army was equipped with 1,100 of these 3” ordnance rifles, each marked on the muzzle with the inspector's initials, serial number, weight, and date of manufacture, and this example is one of only three marked “N.J.” rather than “U.S.”

Pawnee, Oklahoma · United States