The double-barreled cannon stands on the front lawn of Athens City Hall, a monument that is also one of the more spectacular engineering failures of the American Civil War. It was designed locally in 1863 as an experimental weapon intended to fire two cannonballs simultaneously connected by a chain, with the idea that the spinning projectile would cut down enemy troops in a wide sweep.
The single test firing proved the concept spectacularly wrong. The balls came out of the barrels at different speeds, the chain pulled them into a zigzagging arc, and the resulting path of destruction was entirely random. No further tests were conducted. The cannon was presented to the City of Athens, which has kept it on display ever since, pointed north in the general direction of the old enemy.