Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[313] for their excellent qualities. Before landing at Charleston they had passed through many hands. The metal was prepared at Sheffield, where the Swedish iron, after having been melted in the furnace and then run into troughs (creusets), was then cast into rings, which were forged by the immense trip-hammers of Firth. Then taken to London, in the Blakeley shops these rings were put together, carefully fitted, turned, bored, and finally rifled; they thus combined the strength of a homogeneous metal like soft steel with the perfection of construction of cannon composed of several pieces. Those of large calibre were loaded at the muzzle, and their grooves were adapted to various kinds of projectiles. These grooves had only a slight twist and a medium depth; their number, varying according to the calibre, did not exceed twelve in pieces seven inches and a half in diameter. In some of the Brooke guns the grooves were cut in inclined planes. The variety of the projectiles used with these guns was very great. A single Federal regiment—the First Connecticut Artillery—picked up, among the batteries in which it served in 1864 near Richmond, thirty-six different kinds of balls fired by the Confederates. During the long siege of Charleston the defenders of that place loaded their old smooth-bore brass pieces with projectiles of an elongated shape. Although the precision of aim of these enormous cylindrical missiles was not remarkable, yet, at short distances, their initial velocity gave them considerable force of penetration, and at times they did great harm to the iron-clad vessels of the Federals. But these cannon could not always bear the strain required to throw off such heavy balls, and in the long run many of them burst.

The projectiles manufactured in the South for rifled guns resembled those of the Parrott model; the Confederates also frequently used Parrott projectiles, obtained from some captured ammunition train or park of artillery carried off after a victory. The Blakeley projectile, which greatly resembled them in its construction, produced the best results. It has at its base a plate of copper, fastened by three screws, the sides of which, bent inward, give way, and are crushed into the grooves by the expansive force of the gases. In spite of the small surface which the parts thus forced present, it is sufficient to give the rotary motion