The Cape Fear Civil War Round Table

The Armstrong Gun was manufactured by Sir William Armstrong & Co. in England during the American Civil War. It was imported to the Confederacy in 1864 and found a home at Fort Fisher as the key piece of armament to help guard the entrance to the port of Wilmington, NC, premier blockade running port of the South. This gun was captured after the fall of Fort Fisher January 15th, 1865. It was seized as a war trophy and transported to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York and has been the Academy's heavy ordnance centerpiece on 'Trophy Point' for almost 140 years. Fort Fisher was the last port open to the Confederacy and the Union took great pains to capture it. During the battles of Fort Fisher in December 1864 and January 1865 over 40,000 shells were fired at the Fort. This was the greatest number ever fired during a single battle until WWI. The battle of Fort Fisher was the largest joint amphibious operation in US military history up to the Normandy invasion in June, 1944.

The Armstrong Gun itself represented leading edge technology. While it was a 'muzzle loader', it used a special studded 150 pound shell that was hurled distances of up to five miles. The studs on the shell aligned with grooves in the 16,000 pound barrel which, when fired, caused the shell to rotate, greatly improving it's accuracy. In addition, when fired, the recoil of the gun was absorbed by specially designed clamps that were tightened against the main support rails.