Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1898-03-09
AN ELEPHANT BATTERY.
l.ovEL METHOD OF TRANSPORTING
CANNON IN INDIA.

British Troops Utilize the Unwieldy AMI
mails to Carry Cannon From One Point
to Another-Danger of the Service
bow Gun is Strapped to IN Elephant.
Elephants have been used in war
fare since days beyond history, but it
has been reserved for the Peshawar
column of the British force now sup
pressing the belligerent Afridis and
other tribesmen on the northwestern
frontier of India to establish a prece-
dent in the matter of % heavy battery
of artillery, in which the big twelve
Founders are packed on the backs of
the great brutes, like the light sec
tional guns on the backs of mules in
a mountain battery. AS long as ar-
tillery has been known in this coun-
try the elephant has been used to
drag cannon, but despite more or
less useful record in this matter of
traction, there are still those who have
doubts rs to his utility in his new
role. Ho is too sagacious and too
powerful for the job. Though no cow
ard at heart, he appreciates the vast
utility of prudence, and (if wounded
in an encounter the merits of which
he does not understand nor desire to
understand, but which he knows af-
fects no personal interests of his own,) J
he is liable to get ont of harms way
with the utmost expedition that his
enormous bulk is capable of. If one
of the fifteen elephants in q battery
bolts, the other fourteen are morally
certain to follow his sagacious exam
pie; and if fifteen elephants, each
with half ton of artillery or his back,
go pelting backwards through q long
column in one of the narrow defiles
that the country hereabouts abounds
in, then somebody is sure to get
hurt.
The enemy knows this, he has good
marksmen, and the elephant is an easy
target, aud hence the reluctance OF
General Hammond. who commands the
Peshawar column, in the matter of ac-
cepting this new arm within the circle
of his troops at Bara. 1t takes, as has
been stated, fifteen elephants to carry
the six guns of battery-six ele-
plants for the unmounted guns, six
for their heavy carriages, and three
for spare wheels and stores. The am
munition is carried in leather covered
boxes on the backs of mules or ponies,
as in the case of mountain BATTERY.
Theoretically the battery can be
brought into action in about six min
utes, but the risks are so many that
some persons who are considered war
wise declare that no officer would dare
to dismount his guns in the vicinity of
an enemy.
When gun has to be carried away,
the gun elephant comes alongside the
piece and knecls down, while the gun
ners unlimber the gun itself, which is
then lifted up bodily by the men, who
carry it shoulder high to the skids that
are placed against the animals side.
There ropes are slung around the piece,
while man stays at either end to
steady it. Another man is posted on
the back of the elephant to drop the
piece into its wooden cradle when it
reaches the top of the skids: The
rope that is looped under the gun is
then passed over the elephants back,
where it IS grasped by the balance of
the guns detachment, who haul on it
like sailors on sheet until it drops
into its groove in the cradle, which is
strapped tightly over the pad-some
eighteen inches thick--on the ele-
plants back. A very similar opera
tion has next to be gone through with
the carriage, only it takes longer. The
carriage itself is first lifted up, then
the wheels, which have been detached
while the hoisting was going on, are
lifted up by four men apiece and re-
fitted to their axles. All this takes
time--too much time, according to
some people. A regular mountain
battery gun can be unshipped and
brought into action in thirty seconds.
The weight of the gun is about nine
hundred pounds, and that of the car
riagc about twelve hundred. .--Harper's
Weekly.