The Columbian | Serving Clark County, Washington

Summer went out with a bang at the Fort Vancouver National Site Monday as park rangers and volunteers fired their 1845 Mountain Howitzer and several small arms for the last time this season.

National Park Service ranger Aaron Ochoa warned members of the small crowd to cover their ears, but even with index fingers in place, the report was still impressive. A concussion of sound bounced off the historic buildings as a tongue of flame and a cloud of smoke shot from the weapon, which is mounted on a carriage with two wagon wheels and could be disassembled to be packed on the backs of three Army mules. (Bowing to practicality, and a lack of mules, the rangers towed it back to storage afterward using a John Deere Gator.)

Monday completes the fifth summer season of weapons demonstrations, which alternate between the small arms demonstrations on the historic parade grounds and an artillery demonstration at Fort Vancouver.

The small arms program featured weapons that were in common use by troops once stationed at the barracks. Vancouver has been a home to the U.S. Army since May 1849, though during the Civil War it was garrisoned by volunteers when the regular troops were called east to duty.

The weapons those troops in 1849 carried were percussion guns. Compared with the flintlocks their forefathers carried in the Revolutionary War, they were a major technology upgrade, said Doug Halsey, a park ranger who hosted Monday’s demonstration.

Not long afterward, though, the 1861 Springfield rifle came into use. One of the West’s legendary weapons, it was a muzzle-loader with which a well-trained soldier could load and fire three well-aimed shots a minute.

That is, a well-trained soldier with good dental hygiene. One of the crucial steps in the nine-step process to load and fire the weapon required the man to tear the end off its paper cartridge with his teeth. Wilson explained that during the Civil War, therefore, all infantrymen were required to have at least four opposing teeth.

“If you didn’t have teeth, you’d end up in the artillery,” he added.

Not long after the war ended, the concept of metallic cartridges became reality, and after that, the Army standardized on .45-caliber weapons. One of those standardized weapons was the legendary Colt .45 Peacemaker, the six-shooter carried by all the cavalry and many of the infantry before the turn of the 20th century.

Because the weapons were standardized, in a pinch a soldier could use a round from the revolver in his rifle, though it wouldn’t have the power of a regular cartridge.

Speaking of power, the mountain howitzer closed the demonstration. The gun looks large, but actually wouldn’t have been a match for true artillery pieces, which had much longer range. But the gun was portable, and effective when used in conjunction with the infantry. Combined with technological advances in timed fuses, it could rain deadly shrapnel at a range of 900 to 1,000 yards.

At Fort Vancouver, the howitzer had a more mundane mission — that loud concussion that rang out over the parade grounds Monday, pleasing little boys of all ages, would have awakened troops at dawn a century ago. With a howitzer, who needs a bugler?

Listen for the boom to return next June.

Craig Brown: 3690-735-4514; craig.brown@columbian.com

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