Woodruff Gun Update: Ceremony at Pilot Knob, April 2024
by Randy Baehr
Three Woodruff guns on authentic carriages. Left to right: Replica tube of the Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site, replica tube owned by Randy Baehr and Charles Tullock, and original tube on restored original carriage owned by Charles and John Berry. Photo by Randy Baehr.
Four Woodruff guns were gathered at the Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site in Pilot Knob, MO, on April 20, 2024. The occasion was the debut of the site’s new authentic Woodruff gun carriage. This was no doubt the largest assemblage of Woodruff guns in one place since the Civil War. On hand were three guns on new authentic replica carriages built by Steve Cameron of Trail Rock Ordnance: the Woodruff replica tube owned by Randy Baehr and Charles Tullock, the first to be mounted on the new carriage; the Woodruff original tube owned by Charles and John Berry on its extensively restored original carriage, the second to be remounted; and the site’s Woodruff replica tube on its new carriage, the newest of the three. Also present was a Woodruff original tube recently purchased by the Friends of Fort D in Cape Girardeau, MO, a gun that is now documented as having been present at Pilot Knob during the September 1864 battle, although it is not believed to have been used. This tube is temporarily mounted on a carriage loaned by Randy Baehr and Charles Tullock, the one that previously held their Woodruff replica. The Friends now have a new authentic carriage on order. (See the accompanying article “By George! The Thilenius Tube” by Scott House for the full story of how this tube arrived, left, and then was returned to Cape Girardeau.)
In 2009, this site was able to commission the construction of a replica Woodruff gun, several of which were known to have been present during the 1864 battle, and several reenactors helped in the process. The Woodruff tube was fairly well documented at that time, but, unfortunately, no information was available about the appearance of a Woodruff carriage, so the site made do with the reenactors’ best guess. In 2013, the first and only Civil War-period photograph of a Woodruff gun on a carriage was identified, which showed that they had guessed very wrong. The real carriage was unlike any other. In 2016, during a living history event at the site, two visitors attended, a father and his adult son, Charles and John Berry, who owned not only one of only seven known original Woodruff tubes at that time, but the remains of the only known surviving Woodruff carriage. Over the next few years, more Woodruff documentation was uncovered, thanks to a host of contributors (see the article “The Woodruff Gun” by Randy Baehr in The Artilleryman, Spring 2024 issue, for a full account of the research), and both the Berrys and Randy Baehr arranged to have new authentic carriages built. Randy had been updating the Pilot Knob site on the status of his research, and they were able to obtain approval to remount their Woodruff replica on a new authentic carriage from the same provider. The April 20 ceremony marked the public unveiling of their new carriage.
A park crew drills on their Woodruff replica before the ceremony, under the watchful eye of an experienced artillery reenactor. Bryan Bethel, the site manager, sponges the barrel. Photo by Adam Knaebel, courtesy of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Members of the Turner Brigade, Missouri Volunteers, U.S., pose with the guns after the ceremony. Left to right: original Woodruff tube on temporary carriage, crewed by Company E, 1st Missouri Engineers; replica Woodruff tube on authentic replica carriage, crewed by Company M, 1st Missouri Light Artillery; replica Woodruff tube on authentic replica carriage, crewed by a park volunteer crew; replica Parrrott rifle, crewed by Company K, 1st Missouri Light Artillery. Turner civilians, Company G, 17th Missouri Infantry, and Company C, 5th Missouri Cavalry, are also shown. Photo by Adam Knaebel, courtesy of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
A Company E crew fires “George” during the ceremony April 20, 2024, at the Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site in Pilot Knob, MO. “George” is an original Woodruff tube documented as present at Fort Davidson during the Battle of Pilot Knob in September 1864. “George” was named for Col. George Thilenius of the 56th Enrolled Missouri Militia of Cape Girardeau, who brought the gun back to that city as part of his unit’s mission to recover the Union wounded and military stores from Pilot Knob after the battle. Photo courtesy of Leadbelt Chronicles and Jonathan Steffan.
Bryan Bethel, site manager of the Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site, addresses the crowd during the ceremony. Photo by Adam Knaebel, courtesy of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Scott House, of Company E, 1st Missouri Engineers, of the Turner Brigade, tells the story of the original Woodruff tube that came to Cape Girardeau, MO, from Pilot Knob after the battle. Photo by Adam Knaebel, courtesy of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
A version of this article was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue of The Artilleryman Magazine.
This ceremony took place during the Turner Brigade Spring Drill in April 2024. Click here to read the full event report.
