The weapons were typically set atop heavy-duty mountings that allowed for some wheeled traversal as well as elevation. This provided for some tactical flexibility but the guns were heavy and, nonetheless, cumbersome to wield in short order. In what became known as the "Rodman Process" after its developer, U.S. Army officer Thomas Rodman, the guns had a "band" wrapped around their existing barrel rear sections for added strength and this allowed evermore powerful charges to be used thus increasing a given projectiles range and destructive power. This also increased the resiliency of the iron guns that were prone to fracturing after sustained use. Of course the process served in allowing engineers to produce evermore powerful, and larger caliber, guns in time.
Beyond their used by Federal (Northern) forces of the Civil War, the Confederates managed to capture existing stocks of Columbiads from Federal arsenals when the secession of states began in early-1861 (South Carolina became the first in late-December 1860). Confederate foundries also took up local production of the gun in various calibers though quality was sometimes wanting and these weapons also lacked the reinforcement qualities of their Rodman-modified Union brethren for the most part. The Confederate inventory yielded both 8" and 10" type guns but only a small percentage of these were known to be rifled. Columbiads were present during the defense / occupation of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina - site where the first shots of the war were fired. Even though designed as line-of-sight field guns, the elevation reach and power of Columbiads saw some of the type used as mortar weapons, in this case the projectiles being lobbed along a higher trajectory than normal for an artillery gun.
Columbiads were in operational service up until the end of the Spanish-American War (1898) - by which point they fared poorly on the modern battlefield and given up in favor of rifled, breech-loaded types as quickly as they could be had.
Content ©MilitaryFactory.com; No Reproduction Permitted.