Early in the War Between the States, Confederate soldiers at Fort Macon obtained many cannons from the Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1861 to defend the fort, including six 32-pounder carronades, stubby naval broadside cannons that fired 32-pound cannonballs. These carronades were originally mounted in four counterfire galleries under the fort's outer wall for flanking defense, where they could fire on attacking enemy soldiers who climbed into the Ditch between the fort’s outer and inner walls. During the siege of Fort Macon in April 1862, the fort had no mortars to lob exploding shells into the trenches and emplacements of attacking Union forces, leaving it at a serious disadvantage. In desperation, Confederates remounted the six 32-pounder carronades in a row and angled them back at a forty-degree elevation to fire shells into the air as an improvised mortar battery against Union forces during the siege and bombardment of Fort Macon. Because carronades were not made for high-angle firing, this use had only limited effectiveness, but it was significant as one of the few times during the War Between the States that carronades were used in a land battle and the only time during the war that they were used as mortars. An original carronade cast in 1820 served aboard the U.S.S. Columbus until the 1840s, then remained for many years at the Norfolk Navy Yard before being loaned in 2011 by the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command to Fort Macon State Park, arriving 150 years after the six original carronades were brought from the same navy yard in 1861.