The
regular army influence was generally against such innovations. Not
once, but frequently, regular army officers argued to me that the
old smooth-bore musket with "buck and ball" cartridge was the best
weapon our troops could desire. We went through the war with a
muzzle-loading musket, the utmost that any commander could do being
to secure repeating rifles for two or three infantry regiments in a
whole army. Even to the end the "regular" chiefs of artillery
insisted that the Napoleon gun, a light smooth-bore twelve-pounder
cannon, was our best field-piece, and at a time when a great
campaign had reduced our forces so that a reduction of artillery was
advisable, I received an order to send to the rear my three-inch
rifled ordnance guns and retain my Napoleons. The order was issued
by a regular officer of much experience, but I procured its
suspension in my own command by a direct appeal to the army
commander. There was no more doubt then than there is to-day of the
superiority of rifled guns, either for long-range practice with
shells or in close work with canister. They were so much lighter
that we could jump them across a rough country where the teams could
hardly move a Napoleon.
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