[NOTE: Go to the above-linked home page; go to the menu at left; go to the bottom-most entry and click on HUNLEY FUNERAL PHOTOS.]
One famous U.S. inventor was a former West Point graduate and ordnance officer named Robert Parker Parrott. In 1836, Parrott resigned his rank of captain and went to work for the West Point Foundry at Cold Spring, New York. This foundry was a civilian operated business and Parrott, as a superintendent, was able to dedicate some forty years perfecting a rifled cannon and a companion projectile. By 1860, he had patented a new method of attaching the reinforcing band on the breech of a gun tube. Although he was not the first to attach a band to a tube, he was the first to use a method of rotating the tube while slipping the band on hot. This rotation, while cooling, caused the band to attach itself in place uniformly rather than in one or two places as was the common method, which allowed the band to sag in place. The 10-pounder Parrott was patented in 1861 and the 20- and 30-pounder guns followed in 1861. He quickly followed up these patents by producing 6.4-, 8-, and 10-inch caliber cannons early in the war. The Army referred to these as 100, 200, and 300-pounder Parrotts respectively. By the end of the conflict the Parrott gun was being used extensively in both armies.
Parrott's name is also associated with the ammunition fired by his cannon. The elongated Parrott projectile employed a sabot made of wrought iron, brass, lead or copper that was attached to the shell base. When the projectile was fired, the sabot expanded into the rifling of the tube. In 1861 Parrott patented his first projectile with the sabot cast on the outside of the projectile. A controversy arose after the war between Dr. John B. Read, who had actually invented this expansion system, and Parrott, who contended he had brought the 1856 and 1857 patents from Read before the war. As a result, these shells are often referred to as Read-Parrotts.
Robert Parker Parrott 1804-1877
This box was originally designed and patented by Colonel Blakeslee. This was a six tube cartridge carrier with a wood block, bored with longitudinal holes to hold six tin tubes. Each tube held the correct number to reload the buttstock magazine. The wood block was encased in smooth black leather, with a hinged leather lid to protect the open tops of the tubes. A leather strap held the loaded box under the trooper's left arm, close to his body.
Drawing: Standard 80 lb Rail, March 1890
New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad
Drawing: Standard Rail Splice, December 1893
New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad
Drawing: Standard Splice Bolt, November 1891
New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad
My mother's father handdrilled rails for splices and telegraph wire summers getting his degree in electrical engineering at Penn State ca. 1907.
He remarked in his dry way that when lunchtime came he would lie flat.
The article remarks that the thirty-mile damage was repaired in a month using slave labor.
That would be a few holes to handdrill.
That kind of muscle work would take a real jock.
