USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2 > Part 44
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son. May the great physician hold you precious in his sight -- soul and body-and when you are removed hence, may it be to the land where the inhabitants never say, 'I am sick.' Rev. Joseph Perry: You found my boy a disabled soldier in the hos- pital ; you reminded him that he had a soul to save, as well as a body to heal. A thousand thanks to you for it. The blessed in- telligence that ' he was enabled to say that his trust was in the crucified Saviour, and that we would meet in heaven,' made my heart beat with joy, while it ached with grief. Mr. Struthers : You, in unison with your lady, were a friend to the fatherless boy -the stranger among you. The Lord reward you a thousand- fold. To one and all, I return thanks, hearty thanks."
CHAPTER IV.
HE FORT PITT WORKS. In warfare, genius for invention, skill in overcoming difficulties in mechanical execution, and the provision of the necessary appliances for producing the most effect- ive weapons, have often saved a nation from dis- grace, and been the means of asserting its triumph. Bows and arrows could not stand against powder and balls. The catapult had to bow to the power of artillery, and the valiant little Monitor appeared upon the ocean at a moment opportune for saving the Union from dishonor in the assaults of the dreaded Merrimac. Napoleon was known to say that the Lord was on the side of the party with the heaviest guns. It is certain that the chances of victory should be with the one which has the best constructed and most powerful weapons.
The subject of heavy ordnance has been a perplexing one on account of the difficulty of producing perfect pieces. In the Revolutionary War the size of the guns used, even on shipboard, was insignificant, and down to the close of the War of 1812 the heaviest gun employed in the military or naval service was a twenty-four pounder that barely weighed fifty-two hundred pounds. Among the earliest and most successful establishments for casting heavy ordnance in this country were the Fort Pitt Works at Pittsburg. They were founded by Joseph McClurg, in 1814, and were located on the corner of Fifth and Smithfield streets, the present site of the Custom House and Post Office, and guns were cast there for use in the war with Great Britain, which had not then closed. The cannon balls and grape-shot, used by Commodore Perry, in his little fleet which achieved so glorious a victory on the waters of Lake Erie, on that memorable
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morning of the 10th of September, 1813, were cast at the little foundry from which the ordnance foundry originated. Mr. Mc- Clurg then entered into a contract with the Government to cast cannon for the navy, and erected new works on the site now occupied, which, by enlargements from time to time made, have come to occupy an entire city square, bounded on three sides by streets and a fourth by the Allegheny river. At first only boring and finishing were done here, the machinery being driven, for want of water-power, by horses. After three or four years experience with these, in which time some excellent work was turned out, the old, blind horses were discarded, and the steam engine, then just coming into use, was substituted.
A board of military men, convened in 1819 by John C. Cal- houn, then Secretary of War, to consider particularly the subject of the use of heavy guns, reported that the twenty-four-pounder, the size then in use, was the largest gun required. Ten years later, a thirty-two-pounder was adopted, and in 1832 a forty-two- pounder, weighing eighty-four hundred pounds.
The Works, which had descended to the sons of the original proprietor, and subsequently, in 1831, had come into the hands of Joseph McClurg and Major William Wade, were purchased in 1841, by Charles Knap and W. J. Totten, and at this time in addition to the production of heavy guns and missiles turned out steam engines and machinery. In 1844, the two iron steamboats Jefferson and Bibb were built and armed for the United States revenue service. In 1840, trials proved that shells as well as solid shots could be fired from heavy guns, which had for- merly been confined to mortars; and guns of eight and ten inch calibre were proven to be practicable. Six years later, experi- ments showed that a two-hundred-and-twenty -five-pounder. weighing twenty-five thousand pounds, using twenty-eight pounds of powder, and throwing a loaded shell of one hundred and eighty pounds three and a third miles, could be safely and conveniently used.
In the making of heavy guns, the method pursued had been to first cast the piece solid, and then to bore it of the size of the desired calibre. In practice an objection to cast-iron guns had been found to be their liability to burst, so that the party firing
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was almost in as much danger as the party fired at. Lieutenant Rodman, who in 1846 had been employed to superintend the casting of guns for the Government at the Fort Pitt Works, con- ceived the idea that cooling from the outer surface inward had a tendency to weaken the strength of the metal, inasmuch as, when the outer layer had become firm, that lying next to it would shrink away by contraction, and so on as the successive layers cooled until the centre was reached. By reversing the process he believed that the metal would be correspondingly strength- ened. He accordingly proposed to cast the piece hollow, and by introducing a constant stream of cold water into the aperture, and at the same time surrounding it on the outside by air heated to eight hundred degrees, to cool the metal from within outward, so that each concentric stratum as it congealed would act like the tire on a carriage wheel, which, being put on hot, as it gradu- ally cools, hugs the tighter, and draws all together more firmly. After careful and thorough tests, his theory was found to be correct, and Mr. Knap secured a patent in Rodman's behalf for the invention, and in 1859, so superior were these guns found to be to those cast solid, that the Secretary of War ordered that all heavy guns made thereafter for the Government should be by this method.
In 1851, after the decease of Mr. Totten, Major Wade again became a partner. In 1858 the entire Works were burned. They were immediately rebuilt on a much more extended scale, and H. F. Rudd and N. K. Wade succeeded Major Wade in the partnership. In 1859 a gun of fifteen inch bore was cast. Three furnaces were employed to melt the metal, of which seventy-six thousand pounds were used, and after mingling in a common reservoir it was conducted into the gun mould. Eighteen hun- dred tons of water were used to cool it, the process requiring an entire week. This gun was removed to Fortress Monroe, where it was fired five hundred times with charges of powder varying from thirty-five to fifty pounds, and with shells weighing from three hundred to three hundred and thirty pounds.
Soon after the testing of this gun, Rodman proposed to cast a twenty inch gun, twenty feet long, to weigh a hundred thousand pounds, and to throw a ball weighing a thousand pounds; but
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the breaking out of the Rebellion caused this project to be aban- doned, as the foundry was kept in operation to its full capacity in turning out guns of lesser mould for use both by land and sea, until February, 1864, when, by order of Secretary Stanton, one was cast twenty-five feet long, five feet and a half in diameter in its largest part, for which one hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds of iron were melted. It was mounted at Fort Hamilton, New York, and was tested with one hundred pounds of powder, and a solid shot weighing one thousand and eighty pounds, without injury. A similar gun, somewhat shorter, was cast for the navy.
A trial of the use of heavy guns in real conflict occurred about this time which gave a decided impetus to their production. It was the conflict of the Weehawken, Captain Rodgers, with the rebel iron-clad Atlanta. This craft was British built, and at Savannah, Georgia, had been iron clad, and so armed as to be thought invulnerable; so much so as to have been the object of exultation in advance, the haughty Southerners being hardly willing to fix any limit to the mischief it was destined to do- the raising of the siege of Charleston, and bringing the city of New York upon its knees, being only among the more common of its exploits. As it moved down from Savannah it was accom- panied by steamers, gayly decked, freighted with fair ladies and gallant men, who were to be witnesses to the triumph of the giant of the waters. Dupont had been apprised of her coming, and had despatched the Weehawken and the Nahant, which for several days had been on the lookout in Warsaw sound, to meet her. Finally, just after daylight on the morning of the 17th of June, 1863, the monster was discovered approaching with colors defiantly spread. Waiting till he had come within three hundred yards before answering the hostile fire, Rodgers opened with one of his heavy guns. The first shot struck and shivered a shutter to one of the port-holes of the Atlanta. The second carried away its pilot-house, severely wounding two of its three pilots. The fifthi passed quite through it -- massive iron armor, stout timber backing and all-and splashed into the water beyond, killing one and wounding thirteen gunners. This ended the battle, for the rebel flag was hauled down and a white one run up, and Commodore Rodgers towed off his prize to
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THE FORT PITT WORKS.
Hilton Head, the gay ladies of Savannah returning with poor appetites to a late breakfast.
Soon after the breaking out of the Rebellion the Fort Pitt Works were greatly enlarged, to meet the increased demand for cannon and ordnance stores, at an expense of over two hundred and forty thousand dollars, and in 1863 Mr. Knap became sole proprietor. Some idea of the extent of the works, and of what an adjunct they proved in crushing Rebellion, may be gained from the following description, taken from the history of American Manufactures: "The establishment is now one of the largest and most complete cannon foundries in the United States or in Europe, as no other is known having the capability of manufacturing guns of such enormous size, or of producing any other kinds with equal despatch. It is the oldest cannon foundry in the United States, having survived for more than twenty years all others which existed when it was first estab- lished in 1814. Its proprietors had each in continuous succession been previously engaged in conducting its operations, thus inheriting whatever knowledge of the art had been acquired by the cumulative experience of their predecessors for more than half a century.
" The foundry contains six reverberatory air-furnaces, capable of melting from twelve to fifty tons each, and two cupola furnaces capable of melting twenty tons. If all of them were put in operation at the same time, they would be capable of melting one hundred and sixty tons of iron, and of making a casting of that weight in one single piece. There are fifteen gun-pits in the foundry floor, in which the moulds are placed vertically on end when the guns are cast. Grate bars and ash pits are placed in the bottom of the pits for receiving fuel, with underground air- flues communicating with them for the purpose of heating the pits while the guns are cooling. The boring-mill contains thirty- one lathes, employed in turning, boring, and finishing cannon, besides other special machines for dressing irregular curves, which cannot be accomplished by ordinary turning or planing machines. The lathe constructed specially for the twenty inch guns is sixty feet long and eight feet wide, and weighs ninety thousand pounds. The boring tool does not revolve while the
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gun is boring, but advances in the line of the axis of the gun while the latter is revolving. When all the lathes are in full work, the weight of guns in revolving motion at the same time exceeds four hundred tons. The lathes have turned, bored, and finished complete, eighteen heavy guns per week, viz .: two of fifteen inch, ten of ten inch, and six of eight inch ; or at the rate of nine hundred guns per annum, requiring eleven thousand tons of melted iron.
" The casting and boring apartments contain twelve large cranes, eight of which are worked by steam power. Four of the latter are capable of lifting, lowering, and moving horizontally, forty-five tons each, and all others from fifteen to twenty tons each. By means of the steam-power cranes and other machinery, the heaviest guns are lifted out of the pits in which they are cast, and moved from place to place through successive lathes and machines until they are finished complete, when they are sent out of the works and loaded on railroad cars for distant transportation by steam-power alone.
" The machine used for testing the iron was invented by Major Wade, in 1844, and has since been enlarged and improved by Major Rodman. It is made to exert a force of one hundred thou- sand pounds, which is applied or removed with great facility by the simple turning of a hand crank, and it measures accurately to a single pound the resistance offered by the body under trial. It is arranged for measuring the resistance of metal to tensile, trans- verse, torsional, crushing, and bursting forces; for measuring ex- tension, deflection, compression, and permanent set in either form of strain, and for determining the relative hardness of metals. The specific gravity is ascertained by a hydrometer, designed by Major Wade, which receives specimens of any weight not exceed- ing two pounds. It is exceedingly sensitive, and gives the weight lost by the specimen in distilled water, to the one-hundred-and- forty-thousandth part of the specimen weighed. Duplicates of these testing machines were obtained and sent to England for use in the Woolwich arsenal, by a special commission of English officers, who visited the United States in 1854, for the purpose of examining the machinery used in our national armories, duplicates of which, also, they procured for use in their public armory at
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Enfield. The instruments used in verifying the dimensions of cannon are numerous and well devised. The Star Gauge which measures the diameter of the bore, the part in which the greatest accuracy is required, denotes differences so minute as the one- thousandth part of an inch. And such is the perfection of the boring machinery, and the skilfulness of the workmen now em- ployed, that the variations from. the prescribed diameter of the bore rarely exceed the one five-hundredth part of an inch. Gov- ernment inspecting officers are present, and witness all the succes- sive operations in the manufacture of cannon, from the selection of the iron for melting up to the completion of the gun, all of which they note and register. When the guns are finished, they are carefully inspected, weighed, and proved; and when they are received, the inspector stamps upon them the official marks of reception. The instrument by which they are weighed has a capacity of one hundred tons. A register of all the details of the manufacture of each cannon cast, and of all the tests made, is kept in the foundry books also. So that a minute and exact history of every gun in the public service is preserved in the ordnance offices at Washington, and at the foundries.
" There is probably no single establishment in the United States which attracted so much public attention during the war as the Fort Pitt Foundry. It was thronged daily with visitors. Many travelling strangers in passing would delay their journey a day or two in order to visit the Works. Distinguished military and naval officers from England, France, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Den- mark, Prussia, Sardinia, and Austria, who had come from Europe to observe the operations of our armies in the field, or to note the progress of the war, and the manner of conducting it, came from Washington City for the special purpose of examining the Works, and of witnessing the casting of the monster cannon."
PETERSBURG MINE. Few events in the late war created more interest, or will be longer remembered, than the explosion of the celebrated. Petersburg Mine. Such operations are not uncommon in the history of warfare, but this is the only instance, in the several wars prosecuted upon this continent, in which it has been resorted to. It has few of the horrors of close
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conflict with artillery, or even infantry; yet, as the direful moment approached, it was awaited with breathless anxiety ; and when, after a deep, rumbling sound, like the roll of heaven's artillery, or the awful voice of the storm, a great fort, with all its immense enginery of war, and the entire garrison, rose bodily far into the heavens, and then fell back and outwards in unthought of confusion,-soldiers buried beneath heavy guns, and the bowels of the earth thrust up to the sunlight, encompassing and covering all,-a feeling of wonder and amazement succeeded. The conster- nation inspired among the enemy was unbounded. Each looked at the other dumb with terror, seeming to inquire if his own foothold would yield, and for a considerable time no movements on either side were undertaken.
The man in whose brain the thought of this novel work origin- ated, and by whom it was planned and executed, was Henry Pleasants; and the men who performed the tedious labor of excavating and constructing it were the men whom he com- manded, the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania regiment. He was born on the 17th of February, 1833, in the city of Buenos Ayres, Argentine Republic, South America. His father, John Pleasants, was a native of Philadelphia, descended from a Quaker family who settled carly on the banks of the James; his mother, Nieves Silveira, of Spanish origin. During his boyhood and to the age of thirteen, he was in the Spanish and English schools of Buenos Ayres. His parents then returned to this country, and he entered the Philadelphia High School. Here he continued from July, . 1846, to February, 1851, when he graduated, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and afterwards, in course, that of Master of Arts. He at once entered upon his chosen profession, that of a civil engineer, and was for seven years engaged upon the line of the Pennsylvania railroad. He subsequently went to the mining regions of Pennsylvania, taking up his residence at Pottsville, Schuylkill county.
When the war opened in 1861, he recruited a company, of which he was chosen Captain, that became Company C of the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania regiment. It was composed largely of miners, and of men familiar with mining operations. He was with Burnside in North Carolina, and with the Army of the
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Potomac in the battles of Bull Run, Chantilly, South Mountain, and Antietam, and at Marye's Heights, in the battle of Fredericks- burg, exhibited the most unhesitating bravery, receiving the pro- motion of Lieutenant-Colonel. Ile was with Hooker in his march to the shattered army of Rosecrans, and in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, did the most effective service.
Having returned to the Army of the Potomac, Burnside's corps stood ready, at_the opening of May, to advance with the armies of Grant on the Wilderness campaign. Lieutenant-Colonel Pleas- ants was still in command of his regiment, and in the engagement before Spottsylvania Court House, he manœuvred his men so skilfully, as to capture two hundred of the enemy. Again on the 18th of June, 1864, when first arrived before Petersburg, and when strenuous efforts were being made by the Union army to carry the place by direct assault, he by a brilliant stroke captured over three hundred more.
The heroic efforts of the men in blue were unavailing in rout- ing the enemy from their well-chosen positions, rapidly strength- ened; and the operations settled down into the slow work of a siege. And now the commander of the Forty-eighth came forward with his plan of a mine. Just below the crest of Cemetery Hill, and opposite the Second division of the Ninth corps, the enemy had constructed a strong work. Colonel Pleasants proposed to start a mine just inside the Union line, run it under this work and blow it up, thereby opening a way for a rapid advance within, and the turning of the enemy's positions to right and left. On the 24th of June, 1864, he formally stated his plan to General Potter, and subsequently, in an interview with Generals Potter and Burnside, it was decided to undertake it, and he was ordered with the aid of his regiment to commence the work. Many of his men, having spent a good portion of their lives under ground, were entirely at home in such operations, and entered into the project with high zest. Beside, the idea of opening the gate to the coveted city in this way possessed a fascination which stimulated them to exertion, though encountering many incon- veniences, and being subjected to much severe toil. Strange as it may seem, army officers looked askance at the author of this novel undertaking, and at the head-quarters of the army little
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faith was exercised in the scheme, even the use of engineering instruments and the ordinary implements of toil being denied him.
The testimony of Colonel Pleasants before a committee of Con- gress discloses the feeling which prevailed, and the history of the enterprise :
" Can you fix the time when you mentioned the matter to Gen- eral Burnside, when you commenced the work ?"
" The work was commenced at twelve o'clock noon on the 25th of June, 1864. I saw General Burnside the night previous, and commenced the mine right off the next day."
" Did you have any communication with any other command- ers on the subject ?"
" No, sir."
" About how many men did you employ in the work ?" ;
" My regiment was only about four hundred strong. At first I employed but a few men at a time, but the number was increased as the work progressed, until at last I had to use the whole regi- ment, non-commissioned officers and all. The great difficulty I had was to dispose of the material got out of the mine. I found it impossible to get any assistance from anybody; I had to do all the work myself. I had to remove all the earth in old cracker boxes. I got pieces of hickory and nailed on the boxes, and then iron-clad them with hoops taken from old pork and beef barrels."
" Why were you not able to get better instruments with which to construct so important a work ?"
"I do not know. Whenever I made application I could not get anything, although General Burnside was very favorable to it. The most important thing was to ascertain how far I had to mine, because if I fell short of, or went beyond the proper place, the explosion would have no practical effect; therefore I wanted an accurate instrument with which to make the necessary triangula- tions. I had to make them on the furthest front line, where the enemy's sharpshooters could reach me. I could not get the in- strument I wanted, although there was one at army head-quarters, and General Burnside had to send to Washington and get an old- fashioned theodolite, which was given to me."
" Do you know any reason why you could not have had the better instrument which was at army head-quarters ?"
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"I do not. I know this, that General Burnside told me that General Meade and Major Duane, chief engineer of the Army of the Potomac, said the thing could not be done; that it was all clap-trap and nonsense; that such a length of mine had never been excavated in military operations, and could not be; that I would either get the men smothered for want of air, or crushed by the falling of the earth ; or the enemy would find it out, and it would amount to nothing. I.could get no boards nor lumber supplied to me for my operations. I had to get a pass and send two companies of my own regiment with wagons outside of our lines to rebel sawmills and get lumber in that way, after having previously got what I could by tearing down an old bridge. I had no mining picks furnished me, but had to take common army
picks and have them straightened."
" Was General Burnside the only officer who seemed to favor the mine ?"
" The only officer of high rank, so far as I learned. General Burnside, the corps commander, and General Potter, the division commander, seemed to be the only high officers who believed in it."
" How long from the time that you commenced the mine did it take you to finish it ?"
" I finished the whole thing, lateral galleries and all, ready to put the powder in on the 23d of July."
" How long would it have taken you had you been supplied with the proper tools and instruments ?"
"I could have done it in one-third or one-fourth of the time. The greatest cause of the delay was taking the material out."
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