
Fort Warren
Granite Civil War-era coastal fort guarding a harbor island, armed with massive fifteen-inch smoothbore cannons.
Location
About this audio guide
Fort Warren's guide opens on the deck of the USS Princeton in 1844, when the ship's own showpiece gun burst and killed two cabinet officers just after the president had stepped below deck. It follows Army officer Thomas Rodman's obsession with a single question afterward, why big guns burst, and the casting method he devised to answer it. Rodman spent years pursuing the problem before the army would even test his idea against a conventional barrel.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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