Sky Watch Friday

Looking to the skies and seeing the Spanish flag, guarded by a cannon, flying over the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida. Why a Spanish flag in Florida?  When the National Park Service has reenactors on site on any given day, they fly the flag of the country those reenactors represent - if the English are represented they fly a British flag. :)

Flutter over to the Skywatch blog for all the great images each week.

Disney Defense

A small naval cannon defending Liberty Square/Frontier Land from... I don't know... invasion by critters from Splash Mountain in the background?

ABC Wednesday: "C" is for Cannon

We bring out the heavy guns for ABC Wednesday this week, becuase "C" is for Cannon.




Cannon is derived from the Old Italian word cannone, meaning large tube, which came from Latin canna, in turn originating from the kanna—Greek for cane, or reed—and ultimately deriving from the Akkadian term qanu, meaning tube or reed.[1][2][3] The word has been used to refer to a gun since 1326 in Italy, and 1418 in England. Cannon serves both as the singular and plural of the noun, although the plural cannons is also correct.[1]

The first documented battlefield use of gunpowder artillery took place on January 28, 1132, when Song General Han Shizhong used huochong to capture a city in Fujian. The first known illustration of a cannon is dated to 1326. The Chinese also mounted over 3,000 cast bronze and iron cannon on the Great Wall of China, to defend themselves from the Mongols.

And as a musician I must also throw in the following:

Cannon have sometimes been used in classical pieces with a military theme. Giuseppe Sarti is believed to be the first composer to orchestrate real cannons in a musical work. His Te Deum celebrates the Russian victory at Ochakov (1789) with the firing of a real cannon and the use of fireworks, to heighten the martial effect of the music.

One of the best known examples of such a piece is another Russian work, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.[120] The overture is properly performed using an artillery section together with the orchestra, resulting in noise levels requiring musicians to wear ear protection.[121] The cannon fire simulates Russian artillery bombardments of the Battle of Borodino, a critical battle in Napoleon's invasion of Russia, whose defeat the piece celebrates.[121] When the overture was first performed, the cannon were fired by an electric current triggered by the conductor.[122] However, the overture was not recorded with real cannon fire until Mercury Records and conductor Antal Doráti's 1958 recording of the Minnesota Orchestra.[123] Cannon fire is also frequently used annually in presentations of the 1812 on the American Independence Day, a tradition started by Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops in 1974.[124][121]

Head on over to visit any of the following for ABC Wednesday fun:

http://abcwednesdayround3.blogspot.com/

http://mrsnesbittsplace.blogspot.com/

http://wednesdayabc.blogspot.com/

Old Florida Series: Part 5

Continuing with some more photos from Fort Clinch:

Below is a better view of one of the 10-inch Rodman seacost guns that would have been fitted at the fort during the time of the Civil War if it had evern been completed in time. The 10 inch Rodman weighs around 7.75 tons could fire a shot weighing over 100 pounds nearly 5,000 yards - just shy of three miles. It was quite a powerful gun in its day, but now is dwarfed by modern artillery. The strip of land you can see in the distance of the below photo is Cumberland Island, Georgia, giving you an idea how close the two islands are to each other and why the fort was built here to command the channel.

Below is a man depicting the fort's cook prepping firewood for the evening meal.

The fort's water pump and bucket.

One of the soldiers cleaning and inspecting his rifle.

You've got to watch out for this guy - he has a Canon.

Haha. A little photography humor for you. :)

Tomorrow: The Mayport Ferry and the end of the series.

Old Florida Series: Part 4

Our main destination in Fernandina was Fort Clinch, a 19th Century fortification built at the very northernmost tip of Florida - just a few hundred feet of the Cumberland Inlet separate Florida from Georgia here. Because of this relatively narrow gap and the natural deep harbor fort in Fernandina, this location was a prime stategic placement for a fortification.

The south wall of the fort, facing inland, with the fort road winding through

the glacis towards the entrance.

Construction on the fort began in 1847. It was named for General Duncan Lamont Clinch, an American officer during the Second Seminole War fought in Florida a few decades earlier. Since America faced no great naval threat after 1847 and piracy had been all but wiped out (certainly it was so in Fernandina by then) there was no great need to hurry the construction of the fort, and so by the time the American Civil War erupted in 1861 the fort was only partially completed: two bastions and 1/3 of the outer brick wall, though the main earthen ramparts. Not a single cannon was in place. The guardhouse and prison were finished, and a wooden kitchen, storehouse, and lumber shed were in various stages of completion.

A Confederate sentry standing guard at the main entry, or sallie port.

With no true garrison present at the start of the Civil War, the Confederates simply took control with no resistance. The Rebels didn't attempt to finish the fort, but they did establish some gun batteries in the fort and other places on this island and across the inlet on Cumberland island, Georgia. With resources stretched thin, however, the Confederates decided in 1862 that they couldn't cover every single island outpost and abandoned most of them, allowing the Union to retake the fort - again without a shot fired - in March 1862. The Union, led by the 1st New York Engineers, then continued to work on the fort and by 1867 it was nearly completed (the war ended in 1865) when the army decided to deactivate the fort and construction was halted.

A view of the fort's interior showing one of the completed barracks. The flag flying is an early Confederate flag from Florida that reads: "Hurrah for Florida! Let us alone!"

The fort was reactivated for the Spanish American war in 1898 but while a mount was built to hold a modern gun, it was never put in place and the fort was again abandoned in September of that year. The army sold the fort and land to private buyers in 1926 and in 1935 the state of Florida bought the complex for preservation and outdoor recration. The Civilian Conservation Corps (a byproduct of the "New Deal" from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to pull America out of the Great Depression) developed the property into Fort Clinch State Park, with the fort, nature trails, camping, beach access, and wildlife protection.

Confederate artillerists fire a Civil War era 3 inch Ordinance Rifle. (3 inch refers to the size of the shell fired.) This would not be used in a fort, but none of the larger guns in the fort are opperational, so they use this smaller gun for demonstration purposes.

Another view of the fort's internior, showing a building that is used for storage and staff offices. The large cannon on the right of the building are 10-inch Rodman Seacoast guns, a common Civil War-era fort cannon. More about the Rodmans and closeup photos Saturday.