John A. Dahlgren’s Smallest Cannon

In about 2007 an itinerant militaria dealer showed me a small iron model cannon barrel I liked, but it took several more meetings over many months before a deal was struck. The small cannon was attractive to me because it bore “Navy museum markings” I recognized. I had checked with the Navy curator’s office and found that nothing like this cannon was listed as missing, so I made the dealer a substantial offer he accepted. I began a multi- year search for any documentation on this cannon and was disappointed after finding nothing at all in National Archives Record Group 74, records of the Bureau of Naval Ordnance. In about 2010 I began searching in the Library of Congress, in “Papers of John A. Dahlgren.” I found the answer in Dahlgren’s handwritten notebook on his design for “IX-inch shell gun No. 2.” In it he described his model in detail, all dimensions matched my piece. The model was sold at auction in 2015, and the auction description I wrote, and photos, including the notebook pages, are here. The model is reportedly now in the collection of a Missouri entrepreneur. I had kept Navy officials informed of auction plans and shared the “reserve price” with them, and they were likely the underbidder on this lot. I was unfortunately not financially capable of donating the model to the Navy. Information on John A. Dahlgren, here.