Artillery, The King of Battle

The cannon here all saw action during the fighting at Vicksburg, where Confederate artillery made the fortifications tough and closed the Mississippi to Union traffic, while Union cannon held Confederates captive inside their defenses and forced their final surrender. For centuries artillery had ruled the battlefield, and by the Civil War advances such as rifled barrels and improved aiming and ignition had made cannon more powerful and more deadly than ever before. Civil War artillerymen used a variety of lethal projectiles, including canister shot that burst when fired and sprayed iron balls like a shotgun, spherical shell packed with gunpowder that exploded in flight and threw deadly shrapnel, solid shot that battered fortifications and ships and crashed through large formations of troops, spherical case that blew apart after firing and launched musket balls in every direction, and rifled projectiles that spun along spiral grooves inside a cannon's barrel for greater accuracy.

Vicksburg, Mississippi · United States