Historical Sketch Of The Organization Administration Material And Tactics Of The Artillery United States Army

Author : William Edward Birkhimer
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330547366
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (473 download)

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Download or read book Historical Sketch of the Organization, Administration, Material and Tactics of the Artillery, United States Army (Classic Reprint) written by William Edward Birkhimer and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Historical Sketch of the Organization, Administration, Material and Tactics of the Artillery, United States Army When the writer of this work joined the army as a commissioned officer, in 1870, he cast about with a view to learning something of the career in this country of the arm to which he had been assigned - the artillery. The result was unsatisfactory. Of record there was almost nothing, and that little was sometimes glaringly erroneous. Experienced officers who were consulted could give little information regarding matters of a date anterior to their entry into service, and when they wished to speak positively concerning those things of which they were personally cognizant their memories were frequently so defective as to surprise even themselves. All this was a subject for wonder to the writer. It seemed strange that with our admiration for and knowledge of foreign services our own had not received more attention; but, on the contrary, the study of its organization and administration had been neglected. Since the Civil war much has been said and written concerning our military establishment. The matter has received no little attention in the deliberations of the National Legislature; but it has always seemed that such legislation would be none the less certain of being wise and permanent if more were known of the history of our army, especially of its combatant branches. Of late years there has been a seemingly increasing disposition with us to inculcate the precepts, if we could not attain to the practice, of European services. There are undoubtedly many admirable features in the organization of some foreign armies; but instead of blindly following them, it would be wiser to first thoroughly familiarize ourselves with our own service and its relations to our civil institutions, to see whether principles which lead to such happy results elsewhere would be equally applicable here; indeed, whether they would not be positively injurious. As to the artillery, however, there is left no room for doubt. The technical and the combatant branches are everywhere else united under a single superior direction, and so they must be with us before either can attain to highest efficiency. It would have been interesting to have touched upon the subject of projectiles and powder, in the manufacture of which there has been vast improvement. Indeed, powder has largely revolutionized methods of gun construction. But these advances in the refinements of modern warfare are of so recent date us to remove them from the domain of history according to the plan of this work. On the other hand, questions involving the construction of carriages, the metals of which cannon should be made, and the character of the 'artillery system' which would best meet the necessities of Government have been of constant recurrence since the beginning of the Revolutionary war. For this reason the latter alone have been considered in treating of materiel. With us the employment of guns in masses was not practiced, and was almost unknown even in theory, before the Civil war. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."