Abstract
The largest cannon of the Civil War was a monsteous 20-inch caliber ship killer designed by Thomas Jackson Rodman-one of America's most innovative and productive ordnance experts. More than a decade after the war ended, the big gun was still a major attraction for the millions who attended the Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. Cast at Pittsbargh's Fort Pitt Foundry in 1864, Rodman's Columbiad was a marvel of military engineering that epitomized the prodigious power of Union industry and influenced the cannons that followed.
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