15-inch Rodman Cannon

15-inch Rodman Cannon on Center-Pintle Carriage at Fort Jefferson

Quick Facts

Location:

Terreplein

Significance:

The park’s museum collection includes six of the twenty-five 15-inch Rodman guns known to survive in the United States.

Amenities

1 listed

Scenic View/Photo Spot

In 1873 Fort Jefferson’s armament was modernized to include six 15-inch Rodman smoothbore cannon and four 300-pounder rifled Parrott guns. Of the 141 guns listed at the fort when the garrison left in 1874, only those 10 remain here today. The other cannon, gun carriages, and cannonballs were sold for scrap in 1900. The 15-inch Rodmans could fire a 432-pound solid projectile or a 330-pound exploding shell three miles, the distance from here to Loggerhead Key on the horizon to the west. The cannon were mounted on a center-pintle carriage so they could be rotated 360º to fire at ships on any side of the fort as needed. The 15-inch Rodmans were eventually made obsolete by breech-loading steel rifles in the late 1800s.