Union Heavy Artillery Battery

Here is my first attempt at painting artillery, a Union heavy artillery battery, plus an artillery officer command stand. They are supposed to be 20 pound parrot rifles, but I found out after painting them that rifled artillery was made of iron (and often painted black, I believe), while smoothbore artillery was made of bronze and was not painted. The reason for this is that rifling would get worn out in the softer bronze barrels, so rifled artillery had to be made of cast iron or wrought iron, which is much harder. The Civil War Artillery Page is, not surprisingly, a really good resource for information about Civil War artillery.

I also took a few close up pictures of my Irish Brigade commander. I think this turned out pretty well. I even did some converting to create the chaplain from a cavalry officer figure, which mostly consisted of filing down the hat and trimming off buttons.