The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-10-15
POWDER AND SHOT.

with one shot, it is hard to believe that
within The memory Of men the cannon
was quite crude affair, like the lumber
ing stage coach compared with the mod
ern express train. Before our civil war
the field artillery of the United States COM
prsed six and twelve-pounders, smooth
bores, and twelve FOUNDER howitzers, all
of bronze on wooden carriages. And the
prcjectiles were solid shot. And as late
as 1907 the famous Turkish cannon used
for defending the Dardanelles were i'm
movable pieces without wheels or trun-
mons. which could neither be sighted nor
elevated nor moved in any way, but only
be fired off when the attacking ship
reached one particular point just in line.
1t was under the fire OF these queer can
non that Admiral Duckworth took the
British fleet early in this century.
At the battle Of Waterloo both sides used
smoothbore muskets, which had small ef-
ficiency beyond $50 yards This meant
such fighting at close quarters as would
not be possible to-day with our rified wea-
pons that kill uufailingly at 1000 yards.
An instance of this short range fighting
is given in Creasy's account of the battle
of Waterloo. THE British infantry stood
firm. and as the French halted and began
to deploy into line, Picton shouted in stem
torian voice to Kempt's brigade: A vol
ley and then charge At a distance of
less than thirty yards that volley was
poured upon the devoted first section OF
the nearest column, and then with fierce
hurrah the British dashed in with bay
onet. The French reeled back in confus-
ion"
Let any student of modern warfare try
to picture what would happen If a bril-
oaEa nf wi M1lEpr Flttp1
should fire a volley at thirty yards into
| charging column. Yet for all her i'm
PROJECTIONS, for all her short range and an
tiquated smooth bore, Brown Bess" did
great work for Marlborough and yelling
ton 1t was BLACK Bess' in the hands of
British soldiers that stopped Napoleon's
game.
And even greater is the contrast In de-
structiveness between the guns used in
| the old times navies and the guns of our
| navies. At the battle of Trafalgar. sixty
of the largest ships in the world fred
| broadsideS at one another continuously
for three hours. and were at such close
quarters that few of the shots can have
missed, yet not a single ship went down.
| And the Belleisle Is said to have resisted
| for many hours against the combined fire
of the AchiAe the Aigle and the Neptune,
| three powerful French vessels, and yet
she did not go down. Compare such a
result with what happened in the few
hours firing at Manila and Santiago. That
tells the story of what advance has been
made in the art of building cannon.
For a long time 1t was thought impos-
sible to construct cannon Of large cali
Der that could be fired safely; the sud
den and excessive generatf9h~ of gases
| when the charge was ignited, usually burst
the barrel and did more harm to friends
than 10 foes Even so late as the Russo
yr7,rIyieL MAR tho larOeSt field pr11ns usef
by the Turks were 24-pounders. And II
was not until improvements in powder.
making were accomplished so that the
| gases were generated more slowly and the
burning of the powder effected more even.
ly, that the great cannon of to-day became
possibilities. An English officer, describ
ing the battle of Waterloo, says tive
guns unlimbered within seventy PAGES o
use, and the first discharge of grape blew
seven men in the square To-day the
5-inch and finch field guns open up OF
the enemy from distance Of a mile OF
two or more
Rihdd cannon were introduced in the
Italian campaign of 1859 and were used tc
some extent in our civil war, being import
ed from England. And the terrible Cat.
ling gun, named after its inventor, r. j
Calling of Indiana, dates from 1861.
The first long gun for firing hollow pro
iectfles for long range was introduced IN
our war for 1912 by Col. Bomford Of the
United States ordnance department, who
called his gun the Collumbiad. From this
has developed the modern field gun FOL
throwing canister shot, which Is now used
with such precision that half Of the bullets
and projectles contained in a single shell
and there are hundreds of these, will strike
a squadron of cavalry a distance of 80.
or 600 yards.
I'd to 1912 the regulation hand flrearrn
! a
musket six and one-haf feet long and
weighing eleven pounds. 1t was muzzle
loader, and fired a spherical ball. effective
at 800 yards. Then years later the riiled
musket was introduced into the British
army with the famous thimble-shaped ex-
paoding mimic ball, effective at 100 yards
And these were used in our own war. Then
came the modern elongated bullet with its
enormous velocity and effectiveness in de-
| strIctton More than one case was noted
in the recent war where a Mauser bullet
passed entirely through two bodies and
lodged I'm a third.
Tal,ing up other features of the in
creased destructiveness of modern warfare
we must mention. Of course, dynamite
which bulk for bulk, has thirty times the
destruct iveness of ordinary gunpowder so
| that when the Vesuvius hurls 900 pounds
of this terrible explosive to a distance OF
four miles. it is practically hurting 1900
| DOun0S OF RualpOWueT iue SdiAf| AlStdHGt
and exploding it on striking. And we
have to-day various other death-dealing
novelties, such as torpedoes and torpedo
boats, submarine war vessels, balloons for
dropping dynua mite over beleaguered Cit
les. and strings Of tandem kites for the
same purpose.
The telegraph was first used in modern
warfare at the siege of Sebastapol and
il did great service at the siege Of Metz
wires being trailed from stationary bal
looms, 50 that Won Moltke at his head.
quarters was able to know instantly al
details of French movements.
While the efficiency of weapons and pro
iectiles has been thus enormously increas.
ed, as well as the general facilities Of
warfare. It is not so certain that battles
of to-day result in greater bloodshed thar
those of former years. At the battle Of
Waterloo, for instance, Wellington's vic.
tory cost the English 1900 killed anC
wounded out of an army Of less than TO-,
600. This terrible slaughter was due II
great measure to the very inefficiency o.
cannon and musket already mentioned
and the fact that the armies were Tins