After the Civil War, reduced funding for developing new weapons forced the Army to upgrade cannon already in service. These three 19-inch Rodman gun tubes were probably made during the 1870’s, but their carriages are improved versions developed about 1888. A large hydraulic cylinder returned each gun to its forward position after firing and recoil, and another innovation was the use of rubber bumpers, a material relatively new to gunnery. This automatic return feature eliminated the time-consuming step of cranking the gun back into firing position by hand.