Why Do They Use 21 Guns in the 21 Gun Salute?

Becky R. asks: Why do they use 21 guns in the 21 gun salute?

21-gun-saluteThe 21-gun salute that we know today has its roots in the ancient tradition of warriors demonstrating their peaceful intentions by resting the point of their weapons on the ground.

The notion of making a soldier’s weapons useless to show that he came in peace continued even as warfare changed over the centuries. Gunpowder and cannons became commonplace among militaries and private forces, both on land and at sea around the 14th century. In order for a ship entering a foreign port to show those on shore that they came in peace, the captain would have his crew fire the guns. This rendered the weapons inoperable for a period of time, with early guns only being capable of firing a single shot before crews needed to reload them.

Traditionally when a British ship entered into a foreign port, it would fire its guns seven times. The reason for the seven shots is widely debated to this day. One theory states that the majority of the British ships at this point only carried seven guns and so firing seven shots became the standard to signal those on shore that the ship was now unarmed. Ships carried enough gunpowder and ammunition to reload multiple times, but beyond symbolism, the idea here was that the lengthy process of reloading would allow the soldiers onshore more than enough time to disable the ship with their own weapons if needs be.

Another proposed theory for the number seven relates to the Bible. After creating the world, the Bible states that God rested on the seventh day (or for the seventh “event”- there is some debate over the “day” vs. “event” translation). So it has been theorized that the number could have been chosen in reference to its Biblical significance, perhaps of resting with the ship coming to port after a long journey. Yet another theory stems from the pervasive superstitious nature of sailors combined with the historic notion in certain regions that the number 7 is sacred, and that odd numbers are lucky and even unlucky. In fact, for a time it was common to use an even number of shots to signify the death of a ship captain when returning from the voyage the death occurred on.

Whatever the underlying reason, the guns onshore would return fire as a form of welcome once the incoming ship finished firing the seven rounds. However, the shore bound guns fired three rounds for every one fired by the incoming ships, putting the total number of shots fired at twenty-one in these cases. As with the “7” number, it’s not known precisely why in the regions that used this number scheme that they chose a 3 to 1 ratio.  What is known is that as time went on where this was practiced, it became traditional for the ships themselves to start firing off 21 shots as well, perhaps due to the ships becoming larger and being equipped with more guns, with the captains ostensibly preferring a 1 to 1 salute.

This then brings us to when firing the 21 shots became considered a type of official salute, rather than a symbolic way to indicate peaceful intentions.  This seems to have started around 1730 when it became a recognized salute to British government officials. Specifically, the British Navy allowed its ships and captains the option to perform the 21-gun salute as a way to honor members of the British Royal Family during select anniversaries. About eighty years later, in 1808, the 21-gun salute officially became the standard salute to honor British Royalty.

While the British Navy adopted the 21-gun salute in 1808 as the standard, other nations, such as the United States, didn’t adopt it until much later. In fact, the United States War Department decided in 1810 to define the “national salute” as having the same number of shots as there were states in the nation. That number grew every year that a new state joined the Union.  Needless to say, this quickly became a cumbersome way to salute the United States and its dignitaries.

That said, the United States did make the “Presidential Salute” a 21-gun salute in 1842, and in 1890 officially accepted the 21-gun salute as the “national salute.” This followed the 1875 British proposal to the United States of a “Gun for Gun Salute” of 21-guns to honor visiting dignitaries.  Essentially, the British and French, among other nations, at this point were all using 21 guns for their salutes, but the U.S. system required many more shots for their dignitaries.  Besides needing to fire off more cannons, this also potentially signified greater honor to the U.S. dignitaries than to those of other nations. Thus, the British proposed a 1 for 1 shot, with 21 being the number, which was accepted by the U.S. on August 18, 1875.

The 21-gun salute still represents a significant honor today. In the United States, the 21-gun salute occurs to honor a President, former president, or the head of foreign state. It can also be fired in order to honor the United States Flag. The salute also occurs at noon on the day of the funeral of a President, former President, or President-elect along with on Memorial Day.

You may have noticed that there’s no mention of the 21-gun salute occurring during military funerals and that’s a common misconception. Known as the “3 Volleys,” the salute that occurs during soldiers’ funerals follows a battlefield tradition where both sides stopped fighting so that they could remove their dead from the field. The series of three shots, or volleys, let the other side know that the dead had been taken care of and that that battle could resume. Therefore the number of volleys is more important than the actual number of shots. Even the United States Army Manuel’s section on the Ceremonial Firing Party at a funeral named the number of riflemen as between five and eight, rather than an exact number.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:

Bonus Facts:

  • When ships were engaged in battle during the 14th century, the common practice was that the captured or defeated ship needed to expend all of its ammunition in order to make it helpless in the presence of the other ship and signify surrender.
  • A 62-gun salute was fired upon the birth of Prince George of England. The 21-gun salute was increased to 41-guns because the guns were fired from a royal park or residence and an additional 21-guns were added in order to pay respect to the city of London.
Expand for References
Share the Knowledge! FacebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmailFacebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Enjoy this article? Join over 50,000 Subscribers getting our FREE Daily Knowledge and Weekly Wrap newsletters:

Subscribe Me To:  | 

7 comments

  • Sorry, I ain’t buying this. I highly doubt that every port an unknown ship came into knew they were to fire 21 rounds. Second how in the hell did the people in port know they weren’t firing at them? What if the port had more than one visiting ship? They would be slowly be running out of ammo. I also bet ammo was expensive, I call shenanigans on this one.

    • Daven Hiskey

      @Jake Lakota: It wasn’t every port, there were many variations as mentioned across different navies and in the early days of guns even within a given navy. But we are tracing the 21-gun origin so only dealt with how that tradition got started. As noted, it’s not really known why the British ultimately settled on the numbers they did, but when it became standard is well documented as noted, as was the “why” they shot the cannons in the first place. Unfortunately, they didn’t write down the “why” part for the number of shots though. 🙂 If you check the references links, the theories we listed about the number come from what various militaries, particularly the U.S. and UK which are most pertinent here, think the “why” origin might have been.

    • Great point but I think the understanding and expectation of 21 rounds came about in the same way that most European countries knew that if a man were to use his strongest hand to give you a handshake – which was usually the right hand- he probably wasn’t going to be able to draw his sword which was usually on the left hand side). Or how people it’s seen as more polite to serve a guest over their left shoulder so that if you were to be attacked to could easily draw your sword

    • The salute would be fired with just a reduced powder charge, which meant that the gun wouldn’t recoil back into the ship where it could be reloaded. Because the cannon of the period were muzzle loaders, a ship that fired its broadside and left the guns poking through the gun ports was demonstrating its peaceful intentions; it could not load the cannon without drawing them back into the ship, an action which would be visible to the garrison of the port. So, at least initially, it wasn’t the number of guns that was important, but leaving them run out after firing, that carried the message that the ship was making a peaceful arrival.

  • I love your work!!

  • This is too confusing.

  • My friend’s father just passed and they are doing a 21 gun Salute for him which doesn’t really surprise me I have met him twice and I found him to be a very upstanding individual and my friend always has spoke so highly of her dad. So I know this is a great honor., And I’m not sure what branch of the service he was in so I looked it up and found your article to be very informative . I’m still confused on a few things.is this just for navy? and do they do this for all service man who pass? Looking forward to hearing from you soon definitely read more of your articles. Enjoyed!!