Behold another Athens landmark, the double-barrelled cannon. Cast in 1862 at the Athens Steam Company, this was an experimental weapon that ultimately failed, but it's certainly not without interest.
The cannon was the brainchild of John Gilleland, a builder serving in the Mitchell Thunderbolts, a home guard unit of professional men too aged, infirm, or locally indispensable to serve in the regular Confederate armed forces. Closely resembling a 17th-century design by a Florentine gunmaker named Petrini—it's not entirely clear whether Gilleland was aware of the precedent—the cannon was a "chain-shot" gun, designed to fire two cannonballs connected by a length of chain. The gun's barrels diverge by approximately three degrees so that the balls would likewise diverge and stretch the chain taut. (By contrast, the barrels of a double shotgun converge ever so slightly; although the two barrels are not fired simultaneously, the shot patterns of a well-regulated gun cross at approximately forty yards.) The balls with their connecting chain would then "mow down the enemy somewhat as a scythe cuts wheat". So went the theory, at any rate.
The problem for Gilleland's cannon, as it had been for Petrini's, was that of synchrony. The cannon had a touch-hole for each barrel, plus a third, central touch-hole intended to fire both barrels simultaneously. Unfortunately for Gilleland, the mechanism was insufficiently precise. The first time the gun was test-fired, a witness reported, the balls-and-chain rig emerged in "a kind of circular motion, plowed up about an acre of ground, tore up a cornfield, mowed down saplings, and the chain broke, the two balls going in different directions." Subsequent tests produced erratic results, most resulting from uncoordinated firing of the two barrels. "When both barrels did happen to explode exactly together," another witness observed, "no chain was found strong enough to hold the balls together in flight." Needless to say, a cannonball with chain attached is going to have an unpredictable trajectory. One shot knocked down a house's chimney with one ball and killed a cow with the other; both chimney and cow were well away from the intended target.
Undeterred by these results, Gilleland sent the cannon off to the arsenal at Augusta for further testing. The Confederate authorities wisely concluded the gun was impractical at best, dangerous to their own troops at worst, and sent it back to Athens, where it was placed in front of City Hall, to be used as a signal gun should the enemy approach.
When the Federals did in fact approach Athens, in August of 1864, Gilleland's gun was sent into action with the Lumpkin Artillery. The barrels were loaded with canister, like an oversized shotgun, and fired independently. The skirmish—the gun's sole combat engagement—ended quickly, with only a few volleys fired, and the cannon was again returned to City Hall.
After the war, the gun was sold, then lost for a number of years, and finally rediscovered and restored to condition. It was then presented to the city of Athens, "where...it has been preserved as an object of curiosity, and where it performed sturdy service for many years in celebrating political victories."
