Battle of Chancellorsville • Tour the Battlefield • Monuments & Markers • The Armies
The four gun battery on display at Hazel Grove includes two 12-pounder Napoleons, a 6-pounder Gun modified to look like a Napoleon, and a 12-pounder Field Howitzer.There are also examples of caissons and a limber. The battery is set up with appropriate spacing between the guns. It was usual for a Confederate artillery battery to have different types of guns, causing supply headaches. Union batteries usually had six guns of the same type.
The A Very Hot Place and Lee Renews the Attack wayside markers are in the middle of the battery.
(below) Two artillery limbers. The two-wheeled limber carried an ammunition chest weighing several hundred pounds when full. Either a cannon or a caisson would be pulled behind it, hooked to a pintle. The limber would ideally be drawn by six horses.
(below) Not a four wheeled wagon, but a two wheeled limber pulling a two wheeled caisson. Each field artillery piece would be pulled by its own limber and accompanied by another limber with a caisson carrying two ammunition chests. This gave each cannon four chests of ammunition going into a fight..
(below) Rear view of the limber and caisson. The metal post angled up on the back of the caisson would carry a spare wheel, and a spare limber pole would normally be slung underneath.
Limbers also pulled the battery wagon and portable forge. These limbers’ chests would be used to carry tools and supplies.
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