![]() ![]() The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to bow before their transatlantic rivals. Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery. The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers- just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians- by right of birth. ![]() ![]() In point of grazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading, or point-blank firing, the English, French, and Prussians have nothing to learn but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are mere pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the American artillery. Not, indeed, that their weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than theirs, but that they exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and consequently attained hitherto unheard-of ranges. Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become extemporized captains, colonels, and generals, without having ever passed the School of Instruction at West Point nevertheless they quickly rivaled their compeers of the old continent, and, like them, carried off victories by dint of lavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men.īut the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the Europeans was in the science of gunnery. It is well known with what energy the taste for military matters became developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers, and mechanics. During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland. ![]()
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