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Originally Posted by fernando
At least Rick, these howitzers, not shooting tense straight but in angle, didn't kick back but risked entering the ground below  .
You can see them waiting for the missing one ...  .
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More properly called 'Mortars' for their appearance, looking like the mortar of a mortar and pestle, they indeed were mounted so that they recoiled downward, they were also quite accurate, could clear fortress walls and their 'Bombs bursting in air' were devastating inside the Fort. There were ketch mounted versions with specially designed reinforced keels and rigging so that the shells (Bombs) could be fired up and out without. the Brits had some with them during the failed attempt on Baltimore, foiled by Fort McHenry, after they Brits shot down the Fort's flagpole, the men raised it up again with a huge Flag to prove they were still there. The Brits left soon after. The American national anthem is a poetic history of the battle. With few exceptions, the arrival of the siege mortars, the fate of a fortress was normally sealed, resulting in surrender, with few exceptions - like Ft. McHenry.
A howitzer is an intermediate form, like a short cannon, but mounted to fire at a steeper angle for indirect fire. More easily transported than a civil war mortar, it usually had a horse towable wheeled carriage. The 1841 Howitzer could be disassembled and carried by pack animals into terrain you could not take a normal cannon.