Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[312] Parrott model. The materiel of heavy calibre was more varied; there were to be found all the old smooth-bore brass guns, the Dahlgren howitzers, and the rifled cannon of Brooke and Blakeley.

The Brooke guns, so called after their inventor, only differed in one single particular from the Parrott gun: the wrought-iron jacket which enveloped it extended to the muzzle instead of stopping at the trunnions. These guns were rapidly and easily constructed and very cheap. The combination of two metals, one ductile and the other brittle, sometimes caused them to explode, but this defect was not sufficient to cause their condemnation, because, in view of the extraordinary difficulties which surrounded the Confederacy, it was important above all to create an immense armament. The entire coast bristled with fortifications; batteries were erected at the entrance of the smallest creeks and all along the line of the large rivers; in short, strong earthworks, entrenched camps, and defensive lines of every description sprang up wherever the two armies found themselves in presence of each other; each detachment surrounded its positions with works; every town needed its fortified enclosure, and new points requiring to be defended were daily discovered. As fast as these works were completed it was necessary to find heavy guns with which to arm them.

The South possessed no metallurgical department of industry like the North to meet such a demand. Out of 841,550 tons of iron produced by the United States in 1856, the slave States only contributed about 80,000 tons, and nearly one-half of this portion, or 36,563 tons, were produced by Kentucky, which the Confederates never occupied in peace for a sufficient length of time to turn her mineral wealth to account. The portion of iron produced by the insurgent States, therefore, only amounted to 42,952 tons, or the twentieth part of the total production of the Union. But this iron, smelted with wood, was of a superior quality, which, fortunately for the Confederate artillery, compensated for the carelessness in the manufacture of cannon and the inexperience of those who directed the operations.

The Blakeley guns, on the contrary, which had come from England, were not only constructed of superior materials, but with the greatest care, and were held in high repute, even in England,