Mortars are large, cannon-like guns that can fire enormous shells at great distances. In the final years of the Civil War, Union forces were trying to take Petersburg, Virginia, near the Confederate capital.
When General Ulysses S. Grant failed to take Petersburg directly, he put the city under a long and grueling siege. He also subjected the city to continuous artillery fire.
In this photo, we see Union soldiers standing on a bridge in Petersburg manning a giant mortar that they named “Dictator”.
The largest mortar in the Union arsenal, the Dictator had a 13-inch bore and weighed over 17,000 pounds. It was too heavy to be used on the battlefield, and so it was best suited for defensive fortification and for use in sieges.
Each time it was fired, it used 20 pounds of gunpowder to fire a 218-pound shell up to 2.5 Miles.
Compare this weapons technology of 160 years ago with the high tech military that we have today. Amazing!
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