Two mountain howitzers are an important part of the heritage of the Louisiana National Guard, and even today they are on display in their main headquarters in New Orleans. The Reconstruction Era was a period of high tensions and political violence by the former combatants of the Civil War trying to establish their separate control of the local and state governments. In September, 1874, the Republican governor, William P. Kellogg, sent Federal troops and the Republican-dominated Metropolitan Police to establish the local government that he wished for New Orleans. On the 14th local citizens, mostly ex-Confederate soldiers, fought the police at the foot of the Canal Street, and during the fight they stole two mountain howitzers from the policemen. The guns were quickly hidden somewhere in the city. Governor Kellogg offered a large cash reward for the return of the two guns, but no information about their whereabouts was forthcoming. When the first free election installed the Nicholls's government and ended Reconstruction the mountain howitzers miraculously reappeared. Redemption and Resurrection, as the two guns were known, were placed in the arsenal of the Louisiana National Guard and remain today a symbol of the heroism of both sides in the war and the harsh post-war occupation of the South.(1)
A mountain howitzer was a non-firing, but influential, part of the Lincoln County War in July 1878. Major Dudley was asked to come to the aid of people in Lincoln by the Dolan-Murphy-Peppin faction. He decided to go to Lincoln and separate the two factions to save the innocent non-combatants. On July 19th Dudley led a force from Fort Stanton of four other officers, eleven men of the 9th Cavalry, 24 men of the 15th Infantry, a Gatling gun and a mountain howitzer, both manned by the infantrymen. When they approached Lincoln they discovered the two factions were each holding large sections of the town and sniping at each other. Dudley informed both factions not to shoot at his men or he would open fire on that faction. The Montano store was a bastion of the Tunstall-McSween faction in Lincoln. Dudley pointed the howitzer at it and threatened to open fire if any bullets were fired from the store. The men inside fled to the Ellis store. Here too Dudley used the howitzer to force the men to abandon a strong defensive position. Dudley, and the howitzer, played an important role in the eventual victory of the Dolan faction, and their backers of the Santa Fe Ring.
Two-thirds of the McSween men fled from Lincoln, decisively shifting the balance of power in the fight for the town. Dudley placed his men between the two factions, but in such a way that Dolan's men could fire without coming near hitting any soldiers. While McSween's men could not return fire for fear of Dudley opening fire on them. Eventually, because of Dudley's interference, Dolan's men attacked the McSween house and set it on fire. Some of the men who had fled from the Montano and Ellis stores attempted to come to McSween's aid, but Dudley aimed the Gatling gun and the howitzer at them and forced them to stay away. In the end McSween was killed and the Dolan-Peppin faction was in control of much of the cattle trade throughout southeastern New Mexico. Dudley's howitzer was a big part of why they were victorious.(2)
The usefulness of mountain howitzers did not end at the turn of the twentieth century. A mountain howitzer was supposedly stolen from El Paso, Texas around 1910 by a group of locals who donated it to the Madero faction in the Mexican Revolution. It was reportedly smuggled across the river at Fabens, and given to Colonel Antonio Villareal. After this it is said to have been hauled over 200 hundred miles and to have seen action at Ojinaga and Camargo. At Ojinaga it was used to knock down the walls of an adobe church which Diaz loyalists were using as a defensive post. The howitzer was returned to El Paso in 1917 or so. This is a local tale, but no one is sure if a Civil War-era cannon was truly used or even as to exactly which type of cannon was used. The mountain howitzer would have been the perfect gun for the rebels to have used though. Its light weight would have enabled it to keep up with a minimum number of horses to pull it. It would have been better able to cross the deserts of northern Mexico than any heavier guns. No one will probably ever be able to prove or refute whether a howitzer truly served in the Mexican Revolution.(3)
1. Evans J. Casso, Louisiana Legacy: A History of the State National Guard (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company 1976), pp. 262-64.
2. Robert M. Utley, High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), pp. 96-104.
3. Kupke, The Indian and the Thunderwagon, pp. 19-21. Also, M. Belding DeWitter, "Revolutionary El Paso, 1910-1917," Password: Journal of the El Paso County Historical Society, vol. 11-12 (El Paso, TX: Texas Western Press, 1968), pp. 46-59, 107-19 and 145-59. Ms. DeWitter talks about the McGinty Cannon, a brass 6-pound field piece that served in Mexico. However, this does not mean that it was the only Civil War era cannon to be used in the Mexican Revolution.