Mannasas - artillary

[creel]

I saw several instances of artillary practices at Manassas of pieces firing rather close/over to "wounded/dead", firing after infantry groups marched past them and rotating guns with loaded barrels and even firing toward public.

Also mountain howitzer crews carrying all thier rounds in Ammo pouches rather than in boxes.

Was anybody else present concrened with these aspects?

[Tom Scoufalos]

Yes. The ad-hoc 1st Fire Zouaves Bn. was all the way on the right flank of the Federal line. The 4 full scale rifles apparently representing Ricketts' Battery and the section of Griffin's on HHH (never saw that abbrieviated like LRT before!!) were handled in a very unsafe manner; at times being manhandled, charged, with the muzzles not 1-2 rods from our faces; they were not primed, but did have the picks in the vents, pierced into the cartridge. At another point, right before that, the rifle on the far right- its hub literally no more than a couple yards from the yellow tape in front of the crop of 'taters- was about to FIRE until shouted down by us not to, given the proximity.

We registered a formal complaint, and one of our members in the 5th NY sent us this follow-up email:

(nuts, it was deleted from my Yahoo email archive!)

Anyway, whatever unit was operating those pieces was apparently suspended for 3 years by whatever governing body oversees them.

-Tom

[Jubilo]

Dear Sir ,
I served with the Third Regulars and the artillery did fire a mite too close for comfort. Several of the fellows turned and yelled at them but I did not see any officers chastise the careless and unsafe artilleryman. Being a Westerner I kept my mouth shut and crammed some cartridge paper in my ears .
All for the old flag,
David Corbett

[bentbayonet]

At the circus one sees elephants.

[VaTrooper]

Yea but they dont get shot by cannons......but mabey outta one.

[reb64]

Why did you just not move out of "danger" instead of whining and crying to the officials. Let them play like it was real, isn't that what you always say on this forum.

[VaTrooper]

When some Federal Cavalryman tramples you we dont wanna here a ****ing thing about it!

[reb64]

I've been stomped on by a horse that charged by and over the dead and wounded, not fun but it was realistic. I guess the soft ground saved me from broken bones.

[Jeffrey Cohen]

I've always wondered why some people insist on taking hits in front of cannons. Are they unconsciously trying to shut the guns down?
Our cannon was so far out of the way the only people we saw for most of the battle were stragglers leaving the battle early, and yes for some reason they chose to walk in front of our loaded battery.
Speaking for the battery I was in, when are guns were loaded our sponge rammers were on the hubs. for the uninformed this signals our guns are hot. Unfortunately most posers tend to ignore this as they also ignore our frantic waving and yelling to them to get out of harms way.

[tompritchett]

Again, this is a reason for some type of training or, even better a video, for infantry commanders on artillery drill so that they can recognize what is going on with the guns.