"Lady Slocomb is a large 8 inch Columbiad cannon, which helped 2,000 Confederate soldiers to hold 30,000 Federal soldiers at bay for 15 days at Spanish Fort, Mobile Bay, when they were beseiged by land and sea.
"The Lady Slocomb was made at Selma, out of Alabama iron under the supervision of our popular citizen and present commander of Camp Jones, United Confederate Veterans, Mr. Simon Gay, and the late Mr. Geo. Peacock. The gun was mounted in Spanish Fort and was gallantly served by Captian Slocomb's company of the Battalion Washinton Artillery of New Orleans, until it was disabled on the tenth day of the siege by the concentrated fire of more than twenty-five guns.
Thirteen of the company fell dead or wounded around it and their blood still clings to the side of the old gun. It lay where it fell, covered by the debris of the old redoubt for twenty-six years when it was discovered, and placed in position on a granite base at the enterance to Memorial Hall in New Orleans by the Washington Artillery as a monument to Captain Cuthbert H. Slocomb.
One of the inscriptions on the old gun reads-- "This 8 inch Columbiad, cast of Alabama iron, by the Confederates at Selma, Alabama, 1863, was mounted at Spanish Fort. Mobile."
Both Gay and Peacock were employed at the Confederate Naval Gun Foundry in Selma. Gay was here in 63. After Catesby Jones arrival in May of 63 Peacock was recruited and hired in late 63 or 64. Jones' foundry gun log book, which begins in late 63, has no record of a columbiad. It would be interesting to know if the inscription actually exists.
Benny