"Ineffective grasshopper cannon?" Topic

Just painting up my two Cowpens grasshopper cannon. Apparently despite being in the thick of the action they caused few casualties. Which lead me to think about the effectiveness of small calibre cannon in the war. Can anyone think of a battle where they played a significant role. I can only come up with Guilford when the British fired them into their own men and Trenton. I am not including siege warfare of course

I'm going from memory here, something I read 30+ years ago. But didn't the American expedition against the Iroquois drag a couple of guns with them that caused virtually no casualties, but terrified the Indians to the point they refused to face the Americans?

Cannon regardless of poundage was critical in frontier fighting.
My studies are as much 1812 as it is Amrev.
Both the Tennessee and Georgia contingent fielded two guns each and of different poundage. The Ga guns were mounted on naval mounts and hauled around in wagons. The guns were reportedly from Saratoga where they were captured.
They unloaded them each night when making camp.
Jackson fired a round each night that was used as a basis in camp defense for the night. I had the please of examining one a the EMA office, near Talladega AL, along with a vast arrow and spear head collection.

Lord Cornwallis, Sir!

Do you really still hold to the notion that a bullet fired is inconsequential if someone doesn't fall dead from it?

ALL FIRE matters as part of the din and perceived danger of battle that contributes to wearing down--if not shattering--the enemy's will to fight.

And an enemy that cannot respond in kind is one that is already going on its back foot.

Give me a "Swamping Gun" in any fight, especially if not having one when the enemy does, and only better when the enemy doesn't!

Get Real, My Lord!

TVAG

Firstly you need to address me as "Your Lordship" or you will receive 100 licks of the cat. No one addresses British nobility as "sir." Secondly I never mentioned bullets, my post is specifically about the effectiveness or otherwise of small calibre artillery. Thirdly I am not sure what the phrase "get real" signifies. I am as real as this pink rhino seated at my feet. Sometimes I wonder how we lost this war to the likes of you.

A casualty is still a casualty. If the unit taking the damage has a low morale, they may fall back, become disordered or leave the field completely. I would welcome the guns.

I think they would have a psychological impact for both sides, even if they weren't causing a lot of casualties.

I prefer to think that the commanders at the time knew what they were doing. This, they took cannons.

Infantry is the key part of the battle. It encourages the Soldiers when they hear outgoing. It discourages the Soldiers when they hear incoming and it's not being answered.

If the occasional ball actually knocks over a bunch of Soldiers it is definitely effective to them. OTOH they may not notice in the din of battle. As most of the terrain is quite hilly and vegetated [not to mention the gamers] most guns will be firing at close range and are quite noticable.

I'd rather have a couple of unimpressive looking guns than no guns at all.

As far as Guilford CH was concerned, it was a long way to haul two field pieces and their ammunition, no matter how light, if they were not likely to make difference.

Cornwallis had his force burn a lot of other useful stuff to speed up the pursuit.

First off, a grasshopper is a carrige, not a size of a gun. Second, I think you can tell what the British thought of light guns when the dispensed with the entire notion of battalion guns, though some guns were designated to support "battalions" (plural) when assigned to specific brigades. Most were 3s or 6s. The most effective use was firing cannister. Guns of this period were not effective in attack, mainly defense, as during attack their area of fire was quickly masked by their own advancing troops.

" I can only come up with Guilford when the British fired them into their own men …"

This one made my head explode, but not because of cannister. This is a myth. Never happended. Read Babbit's book where he traces this tall tale to Light Horse Harry Lee (and absolutely no one else), told decades after the battle. A mythical incident that he was no where near to see anyway.

I hope you have two heads then, because I intend to make it explode again. The British did fire into their own troops. This is supported by primary British and American sources including Nathanael Greene (see Greene to Huntingdon in Richard Showman, ed., The Papers of Nathanael Greene, Vol. VII, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 440.
It IS true that Cornwallis never gave a direct order to fire into his own men intentionally. It is THIS point that is apocryphal and a myth not wether the British fired into their own men or not. My initial post makes no mention of Cornwallis. At one point in the battle, he came upon a melee in close combat between the 2nd Battalion of the Guards and 1st Maryland and ordered his soldiers to use a 3-pounder grasshopper to fire on Lt. Col William Washington's light dragoons who had attacked the Guards and come between Cornwallis and his troops. Cannon doesn't discriminate between red and blue. But the decision halted the Dragoons, separated the Guards from the 1st Maryland, and forced Greene to leave the field to preserve his troops — this allowed Cornwallis to escape. That is positive use of cannon in my view.

Firing into British troops is always positive, no matter which side does it!
Huzzah! 😄🍺👍
It's sad that few rules allow that.

But then, "That which is not forbidden is compulsory."
"Ok. Artillery firing, phase 3.2. ‘Firing into melee.' Determine how many total hits, and roll a D10 to…"

Have you read Babbit's book? His research on the subject (and I'll defer to the two authors) seemed pretty good. They could not find any cooborating eyewitness to the story, though history books are always in need of being updated. :-)

My understanding was that Greene left the field when some of the green Maryland troops gave way, but I am recalling that from memory.

Firing into British troops is always positive, no matter which side does it!
Huzzah! 😄🍺👍
It's sad that few rules allow that.

Goes double for firing into Loyalist troops; keeps 'em honest!

It's always nice to have corroborating evidence but its absence doesnt mean that an event did not take place.

The problem with the Guilford story is it's traced to people who were not in a position to see it in the first place. So I'll go with Babbit's conclusions on this one.

It's right up there with Peter Francisco "hewing down a dozen dragoons" when he himself said he never did it.

It's repeated in history books, so it must be true. LoL

The problem with the Guilford story is it's traced to people who were not in a position to see it in the first place. So I'll go with Babbit's conclusions on this one.

You're free to believe what you like. I merely maintain that an absence of corroborating sources does not negate a statement. Additionally, you don't have to be a witness to something to understand that it took place. Further, history is filled with second hand/third party accounts; and accounts by people who lived centuries after an event. Also, one cant assume that eyewitnesses aren't confused or lying themselves.

Was Light Horse Harry Lee known to be a liar? Has anyone dug up British troops from these battles to see if they had British cannister or solid shot wounds in their backs?

My understanding is that 'grasshopper' was principally a nickname given to Colonel Pattison's Light 3-pdr.

Weighing about 1-1/2 hundredweight, this was described as
"A very curious, contrived light piece..which on emergencies might be carried on men's shoulders (Gazette July 6th 1773)

General Amherst observed that "Pattison's by being carried on Horses might have the advantage of going in Paths where no Wheel Carriage can go." He went on to say "I wish from my heart the light three Pounders may answer, four are of Col. Pattison's, two of an Invention Lord Townshend brought from Ireland, they are all very pretty Guns, but I have my doubts of the practical use of them on Service." (Amherst, 8th April 1775).

There have been a number of explanations offered to explain the name "grasshopper." It seems that, over time the term came to be used for light guns in general, commonly 3-pdrs, but brackets for shafts to man-pack pieces may have been one common factor. The supposedly insect-like appearance of a piece with carrying shafts inserted is one reason given as the origin of the 'grassopper' nickname.

Eventually, Pattinson himself ordered- "that the
Terms 'Grasshopper', 'Butterfly', &c be not made use of in any Returns from this Office, to distinguish one Sort of 3 Pr from another, but that they may be particularized by their Carriages, whether with Limbers or with Shafts."

(Adye to John Grant New York Septr 11th 1779).

Interesting post 42nd.

In regards to history, you can only write the facts you have. IIRC, no one in the actual action related to the supposed freindly fire incident wrote about it. I think that says a lot.

If you aren't an eyewitness, then your testimony is called hearsay. If you describe what happened decades later, then you are subject to mis-remembering. Apparently that was the case of the one eyewitnesses who said that the British fought in ranks of two at Quebec (oft cited in history books as fact), until later accounts written right after the battle refuted the eyewitness' faded memory.

And the problem with many history writers is that the often repeat false information instead of researching on their own. The Babbit's book, IIRC, did a pretty thorough job of looking into the fired-on-their-own troops story. Not saying that couldn't be corrected at some point either. We learn and we grow. :-)

If you aren't an eyewitness, then your testimony is called hearsay.

This is incorrect. Hearsay is an out of court statement used in court to prove the truth of the matter asserted.

I believe you are referring to events and not facts. Events differ from facts in that they are observations, impressions, moods and perceptions rather than hard evidence such as battlefield excavations yielding British grapeshot lodged in their own troops backsides. That is why we try to gather both research on events AND facts.

Events can be witnessed or felt and can be misinterpreted by the observer. For a hypothetical, during a battle, a Continental witness can see British soldiers fall and assume it was British artillery firing into them when it was in fact their own sides' new smokeless artillery striking the target. The fact that the Continental was unfamiliar with either the existence or effect of this new type of artillery can seriously undermine what they saw; or believed they saw.

You do not have to be an eyewitness to relate accurate accounts of events. If you are told by survivors of the battle that Loyalist soldiers bayoneted Continentals trying to surrender at Waxhaws and you tell the story 30 years later but no one else bothered to record it, it doesn't mean it is untrue or didn't happen.

By contrast, you can be an eyewitness and can relate an inaccurate or dishonest account of events. It's true that memories fade but eyewitness accounts garnered on the spot can also be grossly inaccurate or faulty.

It may be true that historians repeat false information rather than do their own research but it isn't proof that something is false based solely on the research someone favors. At best, what is proposed about Lee's statement constitutes a rebuttal but it cannot be taken to be dispositive. That's why I asked if anyone knew if Lee was known to lie, have a faulty memory or if any excavations of the battlefield did or did not yield British soldiers with British ammo lodged in their backsides?

In any case, rather than "eyewitness" evidence, I think you are referring to "Direct evidence" which is not a requirement to establish an event. An event can be established with "Circumstantial evidence". I would like to point out the seriousness with which we consider circumstantial evidence. For instance, in the USA, circumstantial evidence is enough to convict someone with the death penalty.

Bottom line is that research tools should be employed in as inclusive a manner as possible and not used merely to establish a reality someone approves of.

Hmmm…you seem to be painting yourself into a corner here. You can't dismiss 19th and 20th century interpretations of the battle from historians and then quote a contemporary one without being accused of contradiction. With respect I think you are confusing two myths. No one is arguing that after the battle a story developed which had Cornwallis order his artillery to fire into the melee, despite being warned he would kill some of his own men. This part of the story is completely apocryphal. The artillery did, however, fire into a melee after American cavalry had entered the fray threatening the British guns and causing both British and American casualties. I am not sure Babits disputes this part though it is some time since I read it. What I am saying is his work, however good, is no more gospel than those who wrote on the battle a hundred years before him. Primary sources confirm the incident but deny Cornwallis ordered the firing in cold blood knowing his own men would be killed. Finally don't forget I was there. I remember it well. Tarleton lost two fingers at the battle which I fed to my dog.

My above comments are to history gamer not mini pigs who I agree with and posted his view while I was writing mine.

Two things:

First, Cornwallis' target for his artillery fire was not intended to be indiscriminate. The desired target was Washington's cavalry as they were tearing apart the 2d Guards Battalion along with the 1st Maryland. The Guards suffered very heavy casualties from both of those Continental units and were losing badly. Babits and Howard are quite correct in their conclusion regarding the British artillery fire in their excellent volume on Guilford Courthouse.

Second, the artillery piece nicknamed the Grasshopper, as well as the similar Butterfly, were both 3-pounders. See Grasshoppers and Butterflied: The light 3-pounders of Pattison and Townsend by Adrian Caruana. This excellent booklet is part of the Historical Arms Series and is Number 39 in the series.

Mounting any gun tube larger than a 3-pounder on the subject gun carriages might have been a problem for the gun crews.

H'm. So, was the battle of Guilford Courthouse an event, or a fact?

Pp 161-63 of Babbits book covers this incident well. Lee was nowhere near that part of the battlefield, but his account has been repeated, uncritically, by a lot of authors.

Good point VT.

So back to the OP's original question, rephrased differently. Were 3 pound guns effective? The carriage they are mounted on is irrelevant. I believe the answer is, not particularly. Sixes were preferred. Note in the ACW, even sixes were quickly discarded in favor of heavier ordnance.

It seems that three pounders could be lethally effective on occasion. Here is an account of the unsuccessful French attempt to recapture the island of St Lucia in December 1778, as they mounted an attack on the British position on La Vigie.

"Our cannon then began. The enemy were within musket shot, as we discovered by the dropping of their men; and our troops began their fire with the greatest silence and the least confusion possible.

Our hill was near the bottom covered with shrubs, from behind which a considerable body of the enemy kept up a constant fire. They had three amusettes, from which they fired grape and leaden balls of one pound weight with great effect upon our line; but these were soon silenced by our four three-pounders. The columns never fired a shot. They for a time seemed to pay no attention to our cannon-ball, which swept away whole ranks, but inclined their heads, now to the right, now to the left, as if to see which way they could most easily ascend the hill. One column gave way twice, and was twice rallied in our sight beneath our fire, they came to a halt at last, and there they stood or fell."

(Captain the Hon. Colin Lindsay, Grenadier Company, 55th Regiment of Foot)

"Our cannon then began. The enemy were within musket shot…"

So any artillery firing cannister acts as a big shotgun. Clearly the enemy was close when these guns opened fire. Not surprising they would have effect at that distance. Logic would dictate that a six have double that effective. The challenges were moving such pieces, and of course, if longer range fire was needed.

At Monmouth, the Royal Artillery found that the issue wasn't the weight of the gun so much as the length of the barrel when conducting counter-battery fire against the Americans on Combs Hill. The RAhad sixes and I think twelves, but their shorter barrels made the ineffective at the range they wree firing at.

And just like wargaming, sometimes you roll box cars, and sometimes you roll snake eyes. :-)

Well, the OP asked about "effectiveness of small calibre cannon." Here is an example. He didn't confine himself to any particular load and or range

As to the load being fired by the British three-pounders, the source specifies the effect of 'cannon-ball' which 'swept away whole ranks.'

42flanker: H'm. So, was the battle of Guilford Courthouse an event, or a fact?

Hi 42flanker and thank you for your candor. It has occurred to me that many on here struggle with concepts like this; have issues separating the subjective from the objective as well as understanding the building blocks of sound research. Intellectual thought requires practice, exercise and training; after all, the brain is like a muscle insofar as it needs to be challenged in order to grow and become stronger.

I realize that not everyone has the benefits of being taught the principles of forensic research and analysis but there are some online courses I think I've seen that might help people to learn how separate,examine and analyze events, facts, data etc. and determine the difference between rebuttals, proof, personal likes/dislikes and speculation.

Minipigs, no thanks required. You are quite right, I was indeed struggling somewhat but more because of the difficulty in identifying any coherent argument in your earlier peroration, confusing as it did, questions of fact, evidence, and proof, objective and subjective observation, not to mention the time-space continuum. You mentioned forensic and analytic skills. I won't labour the point but did you make a note of those online courses?

If the intention of your most recent post was sarcastic, as one might be forgiven for thinking, I feel you could have saved yourself time and effort and made your point with considerably fewer words. If your readers' interest flags, the point does tend to be lost.

Failing to heed my own advice, I will close by citing one of many legal dictionaries available online:
"HEARSAY EVIDENCE. The evidence of those who relate, not what they know themselves, but what they have heard from others. 2. As a general rule, hearsay evidence of a fact is not admissible."

‘Not being admissible,' I think, is the key phrase there. There may be an intention to prove, perhaps, but in the absence of the cited source being available for examination in testimony, in general circumstances it will fail.

That would tend to validate historygamer's assertion that
"If you aren't an eyewitness, then your testimony is called hearsay."

Do I take it my question regarding Guilford Courthouse will go unanswered?

+1 to 42nd.

And I know that at least one poster on here has a PhD in history from one of the best university's in the U.S.

Babbits recounts McLeod's 3 pounders firing at Rebel cavalry, possibly hitting some of the retreating Guardsmen.

But Lee's story is an error, if not an outright fabrication, possibly heard frim somebody who knows a guy…

History is replete with this sort of thing.

"This is the Frontier, senator…"

@42flanker:

In our many pleasant interactions, you give me the impression that you are a scholar of infinite jest and of most excellent fancy. Perhaps your rare case of confusion stems from the fact that I have made no argument and I know that because I have no familiarity with whether or not Cornwallis purposefully fired into his own troops. Frankly, I hope he didn't; he seems like such an affable chap.

I was pointing out that it is unusual to make such assured declarations to dismiss a recorded event with faulty and inchoate research techniques. Further, the misapplication of a word like "Hearsay" and its definition/meaning appeared to further compound gaps in sound research techniques (ostensibly that if it wasn't personally witnessed, it was per se hearsay aka "invented/rumored/unreliable".) Some of the confusion by the uninformed around the term "hearsay" may be that because it revolves around "witnesses or evidence in court", the term thus also means "eyewitnesses out-of-court"; it doesn't.

I also understand that some extreme media has recently given the term "hearsay" the spin of "gossip" as a way to cover up criminal behavior and discredit witnesses to those crimes but that same media has also confused what constitutes "first hand meaning" which exposes their true propagandistic intentions. I didnt bring this up before because I was sure scholars would never be swayed by such irresponsible, partisan word manipulation.

However, I did find it ironic that a few posters were suggesting that the uninformed public's generic, unexamined acceptance of an event they considered false was proved in their minds via the unexamined misuse of a legal term. To an outsider, it looked like sloppy research laughing at sloppy research.

To sum up, the idea that a non-eyewitness is per se Hearsay and an eyewitness in per se non-hearsay is false.

Additionally, there is no requirement for someone to be an eyewitness to get something right or be accurate. We need to be careful applying that subjective local standard because it might haunt one down the road. While I think it is fair to suggest that a non-eyewitnesses' 30 year old statement might be treated with suspicion, that alone is not enough to overturn the accuracy of a statement but merely rebut it. There are myriad occasions when a non-eyewitness can gauge an event more accurately (and honestly) than eyewitnesses.

I looked for your definition of Hearsay and it seems to have been found at freedictionary.com. My definition is derived more from Black's Law Dictionary or the Federal Rules of Evidence which are the Legal Gold standards in America. The definition at freedictionary.com is more some sort of confused, mongrelized version.

link

link

link

Of course, I dont fault you for not knowing the difference but in a way it helps to underscore one of my points that when someone hasn't been introduced to elevated techniques of both research and analysis they can fail to see even the vast contrast between a classic-standard and a bargain-bin one.

historygamer said: And I know that at least one poster on here has a PhD in history from one of the best university's in the U.S.

What a treat. What have they published?

Minipigs, the key word in my last was not 'argument' but 'coherent.' I'll leave it there.

Minipigs – Do you have anything even remotely relevant to add to this thread? I've yet to see even one historical fact or related piece of information post from you.

+1 historygamer.

"+1 historygamer."

Thank you Historygamer!

"Hearsay" is a legal concept. It is frequently misunderstood even within the legal community, and I don't think it has much relevance outside of it.

One reason that hearsay evidence is limited in court is that it in essence permits a witness to testify without the opposing side having the opportunity to cross examine that witness. Since we are talking about events that happened 200+ years ago, cross examination isn't an issue. Plus unlike the courtroom triers of fact we are not limited to looking at just the evidence presented to us. We can go beyond that and gather additional information we find relevant to make our decision.

FWIW I would take Babits analysis of Guilford Courthouse over Lee's. That said I do find it possible that Cornwallis's artillery may have caused casualties among some British troops, even if (though might be the better word) that was not the gunner's intent.

Friendly fire.

+1 to HG as well…

Kevin makes a good point, the target of British artillery was not intended to be British troops.

That being said we have a term "danger close" and it's called that for a reason…

Eric

There are numerous examples of recorded statements made decades after the event which will not stand up to scrutiny in the present day, whether discussing events witnessed personally or simply relaying what the source believed to be the case, (either relaying gossip or reporting the alleged account of an eye-witness of which there is no contemporary record) For the latter, I think 'hearsay' is a reasonable enough label.

Both dispatches or diary entries made on the day can be mistaken, coloured by bias, or tailored for public consumption, but evidence offered and recorded years after an event can be distorted by misremembering, failing memory, well meant mythologising or shameless yarning, and so obviously must be regarded with particular caution.

[My father's account of his wounding in Libya in Jan 1943 (of which he gave two versions) differed considerably from the accounts given in his citation for the M.C. made hours or days after the event while he was unconscious and at death's door. You'd think he would have known best but- maybe not.

"Friendly fire is not friendly"

(Does General Montgomery micromanaging a fighting patrol count as 'friendly fire'?)

'Friendly Fire'-isn't.

So I was just re-reading parts of Michael Harris' book on Brandywine, as I wanted to better understand the less studied march and combat of Knyphausen's column. The author stated that in at least one of the British columns (Knyphausen's?) the light guns were at the rear of the column. When they moved up on Brinton and Chadd's ford, they brought forward 6 pounders. By light guns, I am assuming they meant 3 pounders.

That depends. Field artillery is by definition light artillery and that would include field pieces up to and including 12-pounders.

Well, kind of, but then they also classify the carriages too (light field carriage, heavy field carriage), that have no correlation to the size of guns mounted on them. But, yes, I am making an assumption – which can be dangerous. :-) It could also be the author's description as well, as it was not a quote.