and P. Fomin (developed a project of a large-caliber cannon, 1860). American Civil War The first railway gun used in combat was a banded 32-pounder Brooke naval rifle mounted on a flat car and shielded by a sloping casemate of railroad iron. On 29 June 1862, Robert E. Lee had the gun pushed by a locomotive over the Richmond and York River line (later part of the Southern Railway) and used at the Battle of Savage's Station to interfere with General George McClellan's plans for siege operations against Richmond during the Union advance up the peninsula. Photographic evidence exists of at least one Union 13-inch siege mortar mounted on a rail car during the Siege of Petersburg. It was nicknamed the Dictator or the Petersburg Express. When it was first fired, the recoil destroyed the flatcar on which it was mounted. A flatcar strengthened by additional beams covered by iron plate was able to resist recoil damage from a full charge. The Dictator was then fired from a section of the Petersburg and City Point Railroad where moving the strengthened flatcar along a curve in the track trained the gun on different targets along the Confederate lines. The Dictator silenced the Confederate guns on Chesterfield Heights to prevent them from enfilading the right end of the Union line. Another photo exists of a gun mounted on an armoured rail car with the caption of "Railway battery used in siege of Petersburg" although no textual evidence survives in support of the caption, which makes the claim that it is a photo of the Confederate gun from 1862 dubious. France France also used improvised railway guns during the Siege of Paris (1870–1871). In France, Lt. Col Peigné is often credited with designing the first railway gun in 1883. Commandant Mougin is credited with putting guns on rail cars in 1870. The French arms maker Schneider offered a number of models in the late 1880s and produced a gun intended for coastal defense, selling some to the Danish government in the 1890s. They also designed a model the Obusier de 200 "Pérou" sur affût-truck TAZ Schneider for Peru in 1910, but they were never delivered. United Kingdom The United Kingdom mounted a few guns on railway cars which saw action during the Siege and Relief of Ladysmith during the Second Boer War. A 9.2 inch gun was taken from the Cape Town coast