The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1918-03-24
U. S. History
Many Curiosities in Way
1t is Represented.
~ PHILIP RosERT DILLON.

Prior to the present great war; NOV
ing picture battle scenes mostly
| showed infantry and artillery fire OF
the Civil war. Has anybody yet seen
movie picture showing soldiers OF
! the Civil war loading and firing mus
kets as they actually did?
Moving picture producers are fond
! OF reproducing Gettysburg and
"Vicksburg'' and ATLANTA" and dra-
matte charges and defenses--soldiers
| behind rail fence intrenchments pop
| ping away with magazine guns or
struggling forward in attack while fir
ing about ten times minute, with
never a ramrod in sight. and never
soldier biting his cartridge and pour
ing the powder into the muzzle Of his
musket.
Yet there are many thousands or
Civil war soldiers who could show
the moving picture producers how
they loaded and fired at Gettysburg
how they were trained in "Casey's
Tactics" how they used to seize
cartridge with thumb and next two fin
gers and place it between the teeth"
how they tore the paper flor all
musket cartridges were made of pa
PERI, poured In powder, damned In pa
per and ball, took the long iron ram
rod and rammed home the charge. put
! percussion cap on the nipple and then
fired. An expert could fire at best,
| three times a minute. Most soldiers
could not do better than twice in a
minute.
If there were any brcech-loading
rrifles at Gettysburg they were in the
hands or only few dsmounted caval-
| rymen. There is no record of any.
| 1t Is one of the inexplicable things
| of the Civil war, and appallingly sad in
the perspective OF this day. that the
United States government did not arm
| it's soldiers with broech leaders until
after three years Of bloody war; and
| then only a few of them.
General Edward p. Alexander, n
West Point graduate, was the chief of
| artillery OF Longstreet's corps and the
leading authority in ordnance of Cen
| eral Lees army. In his book. Mill
tary Memoirs of n Confederate" he
writes:
I'm its early stages (of the Civil war;
| we had great trouble with the endless
variety of arms and ealibres in use,
| scarcely 10 per cent of them being the
muzzle- loading. rifled musket (the
| other 80 per cent being of the old
smooth bore musket TYPED, caliber IS,
which was the regulation arm for
United States infantry. There were
several breech- loading small arms
manufactured in the north, but none
had secured the approval of the United
States ordnance department, although
many Of them would have made more
formidable weapons than any muzzle-
| leaders.
! After a year or two some of the
best breech- leaders got admission
among cavalry regiments. and com
mon sense and experience gradually
forced recognition of the value of
heavy fire. By 1854 the Spencer
breech-loading carbine had been adopt
ed as the regulation arm for the fed
eral cavalry, and by the fall of that
Year brigades of infantry began to APP
pear with 1t.
There Is reason to believe that had
the federal infantry been armed from
the first with even the breech leaders
favaiable in 1861, the war would have
been terminated within Il year"
What an amazing vista this last
statement of General Alexander brings
to us! The war which lasted four years
could have been terminated in one year
had the government provided breech-
loading rifles for it's soldiers Why
did not the government do it? Ask the
forces Of darkness" commanding
treachery, spells, graft. Ask the sys-
tenn of bureaucracy. stupidity. igno-
rance!
|