Sept. 17, 2022
SHY’S HILL HOWITZERS REMOVED FOR REPAIR AND REFITTING WITH NEW WEATHER RESISTANT CARRIAGES
[The two “Mountain Howitzers” located on the lower east side of Shy’s Hill were removed by BONT board members on Sept. 17, 2022, after the replica field pieces became too weather-damaged to be appropriate for display, and will be returned after repairs.
The two replica mountain howitzers were placed on the Hill in April, 2019, to demonstrate the approximate location of the only artillery pieces that were in service there on Dec. 16, 1864. However, wood used in construction of the carriages had deteriorated, requiring their removal.
Howitzer tubes and broken carriages loaded aboard BONT board member Bobby Whitson’s much-used “ol’ warhorse Bessie” for transport to repair facility
“With the leadership of Bobby Whitson, chainsaw work by Jim Kay, strong backs of Clay Bailey, Jim Atkinson, Jimmy Pickel, and the assistance of gravity, we were able to decamp the two artillery pieces from the slope of Shy’s Hill! We look forward to their return with new carriages,” said BONT president Bill Ozier, who was also on the work detail.
BONT will have the cannon barrels refurbished and refitted with aluminum carriages, and they will be returned to the site as soon as possible. The location was determined by BONT historians to be the most likely area where Hood’s troops were able to assemble a small battery of artillery during the night of Dec. 15 and early morning hours of Dec. 16, 1864.
After the Confederate line was forced to fall back from its initial positions on Dec. 15, 1864, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Cheatham’s corp had only 34 artillery pieces available for service for the second day of battle, and only a handful of these could be transported through the night and the boggy cornfields to a flattened plateau on the east side of the Hill. Maj. Gen. William Bate had apparently found a rough country road in this flattened area, believed to be located in the vicinity of the current Benton Smith Rd. and the Shy’s Hill trail head.
By first light on Dec. 16, the Shy’s Hill battery, which was under the command of Capt. Rene T. Beauregard, had been supplemented on the plateau with four other field pieces under the command of Maj. Daniel Truehart. Many others, especially the heavy Napoleons, could not be dragged through the thawing mud of the fields, especially under the difficult conditions of a nighttime retreat and establishment of a new line of battle.
The “Mountain Howitzer” was a bronze smoothbore 12-pounder field piece that got its name from its development in the 1830s as an easily transportable field piece for use in the western mountain terrain of the Indian and Mexican-American wars. It was much more portable than the larger artillery such as the 2,500 pound Napoleons, the workhorse artillery of the Confederate army. The howitzer was relatively lightweight and could be disassembled into three pieces for easier transportation. It fired explosive ordnance as well as case and canister, with a maximum range of about 1000 yards.