CHAPTER I During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club wasestablished in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland.It is well known with what energy the taste for military mattersbecame developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers,and mechanics. Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to becomeextemporized captains, colonels, and generals, without havingever passed the School of Instruction at West Point;nevertheless; they quickly rivaled their compeers of the oldcontinent, and, like them, carried off victories by dint oflavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men.
But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced theEuropeans was in the science of gunnery. Not, indeed, thattheir weapons retained a higher degree of perfection thantheirs, but that they exhibited unheard-of dimensions, andconsequently attained hitherto unheard-of ranges. In point ofgrazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading, or point-blankfiring, the English, French, and Prussians have nothing tolearn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are merepocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of theAmerican artillery.
This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the firstmechanicians in the world, are engineers— just as the Italiansare musicians and the Germans metaphysicians— by right of birth.Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive themapplying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman.The Armstrong, Palliser, and Beaulieu guns were compelled to bowbefore their transatlantic rivals.
Now when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a secondAmerican to share it. If there be three, they elect a presidentand two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records,and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a generalmeeting, and the club is fully constituted. So things weremanaged in Baltimore. The inventor of a new cannon associatedhimself with the caster and the borer. Thus was formed thenucleus of the "Gun Club." In a single month after its formationit numbered 1,833 effective members and 30,565 corresponding members.
One condition was imposed as a sine qua non upon everycandidate for admission into the association, and that was thecondition of having designed, or (more or less) perfected acannon; or, in default of a cannon, at least a firearm ofsome description. It may, however, be mentioned that mereinventors of revolvers, fire-shooting carbines, and similarsmall arms, met with little consideration. Artillerists alwayscommanded the chief place of favor.
The estimation in which these gentlemen were held, according toone of the most scientific exponents of the Gun Club, was"proportional to the masses of their guns, and in the directratio of the square of the distances attained by their projectiles."
The Gun Club once founded, it is easy to conceive the result ofthe inventive genius of the Americans. Their military weaponsattained colossal proportions, and their projectiles, exceedingthe prescribed limits, unfortunately occasionally cut in twosome unoffending pedestrians. These inventions, in fact, leftfar in the rear the timid instruments of European artillery.
It is but fair to add that these Yankees, brave as they haveever proved themselves to be, did not confine themselves totheories and formulae, but that they paid heavily, in propriapersona, for their inventions. Among them were to be countedofficers of all ranks, from lieutenants to generals; militarymen of every age, from those who were just making their debutin the profession of arms up to those who had grown old in thegun-carriage. Many had found their rest on the field of battlewhose names figured in the "Book of Honor" of the Gun Club; andof those who made good their return the greater proportion borethe marks of their indisputable valor. Crutches, wooden legs,artificial arms, steel hooks, caoutchouc jaws, silver craniums,platinum noses, were all to be found in the collection; and itwas calculated by the
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