SOME INVENTIONS AND DEVICES OF THE WAR.
[Illustration: A TORPEDO.]
That “necessity is the mother of invention” nothing can more clearly and
fully demonstrate than war. I will devote this chapter to presenting
some facts from the last war which illustrate this maxim. As soon as
the tocsin of war had sounded, and men were summoned to take the field,
a demand was at once made, on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line,
for a new class of materials—the materials of war, for which there had
been no demand of consequence for nearly fifty years. The arms, such as
they were, had been largely sent South before the outbreak. But they
were somewhat old-fashioned, and, now that there was a demand for new
arms, inventive genius was stimulated to produce better ones. It always
has been true, and always will be, that the manufactured products for
which there is an extensive demand are the articles which invention will
improve upon until they arrive as near perfection as it is possible for
the work of human hands to be. Such was the case with the materials
of warfare. Invention was stimulated in various directions, but its
products appeared most numerous, perhaps, in the changes which the arms,
ammunition, and ordnance underwent in their better adaptation to the
needs of the hour.
The few muskets remaining in the hands of the government in 1861 were
used to equip the troops who left first for the seat of war. Then
manufacturing began on an immense scale. The government workshops could
not produce a tithe of what were wanted, even though running night and
day; and so private enterprise was called in to supplement the need.
As one illustration, Grover & Baker of Roxbury turned their extensive
sewing-machine workshop into a rifle-manufactory, which employed several
hundred hands, and this was only one of a large number in that section.
Alger, of South Boston, poured the immense molten masses of his cupolas
into the moulds of cannon, and his massive steam-hammers pounded out and
welded the ponderous shafts of gunboats and monitors. The descendants
of Paul Revere diverted a part of their yellow metal from the mills
which rolled it into sheathing for government ships, to the founding
of brass twelve-pounders, or Napoleons, as they were called; and many
a Rebel was laid low by shrapnel or canister hurled through the muzzle
of guns on which was plainly stamped “Revere Copper Co., Canton, Mass.”
Plain smooth-bore Springfield muskets soon became Springfield rifles,
and directly the process of rifling was applied to cannon of various
calibres. Then, muzzle-loading rifles became breech-loading; and from a
breech-loader for a single cartridge the capacity was increased, until
some of the cavalry regiments that took the field in 1864 went equipped
with Henry’s sixteen-shooters, a breech-loading rifle, which the Rebels
said the Yanks loaded in the morning and fired all day.
I met at Chattanooga, Tenn., recently, Captain Fort, of the old First
Georgia Regulars, a Confederate regiment of distinguished service. In
referring to these repeating rifles, he said that his first encounter
with them was near Olustee, Fla. While he was skirmishing with a
Massachusetts regiment (the Fortieth), he found them hard to move, as
they seemed to load with marvellous speed, and never to have their fire
drawn. Determined to see what sort of fire-arms were opposed to him, he
ordered his men to concentrate their fire on a single skirmisher. They
did so and laid him low, and afterwards secured his repeating rifle—I
think a Spencer’s seven or eight shooter—which they carried along, as a
great curiosity, for some time afterward.
[Illustration: A GUNBOAT.]
In the navy Invention made equally rapid strides. When the war broke
out, the available vessels were mainly a few ships-of-the-line, frigates
and screw steamers; but these could be of little service in such a
warfare as was evidently on hand, a warfare which must be carried on
in rivers, and bays, and coastwise generally, where such clumsy and
deep-draught vessels could not be used. So sloops-of-war, gunboats,
mortar-boats, double-enders, and iron-clads came to the front, and the
larger old-fashioned craft were used mainly as receiving ships. But with
the increase in range and calibre of naval armament came a seeking by
Invention for something less vulnerable to their power, and after the
encounter of the little “Yankee Cheese Box,” so called, and the Rebel
Ram “Virginia,” the question of what should constitute the main reliance
of the navy was definitely settled, and monitors became the idols of the
hour. These facts are all matters of well written history, and I refer to
them now only to illustrate the truth of the maxim with which I began the
chapter.
I wish now to give it still further emphasis by citing some illustrations
which the historian has neglected for “nobler game.” Some of the
inventions which I shall refer to were impractical, and had only a
brief existence. Of course your small inventor and would-be benefactor
to his kind clearly foresaw that men who were about to cut loose from
the amenities of civil life would be likely to spend money freely in
providing themselves before their departure with everything portable that
might have a tendency to ameliorate the condition of soldier life. With
an eye single to this idea these inventors took the field.
[Illustration: A MORTAR BOAT.]
One of the first products of their genius which I recall was a
combination _knife-fork-and-spoon_ arrangement, which was peddled through
the state camping-grounds in great numbers and variety. Of course every
man must have one. So much convenience in so small a compass must be
taken advantage of. It was a sort of soldier’s trinity, which they all
thought that they understood and appreciated. But I doubt whether this
invention, on the average, ever got beyond the first camp in active
service.
I still have in my possession the remnants of a _water-filterer_ in which
I invested after enlistment. There was a metallic mouth-piece at one end
of a small gutta-percha tube, which latter was about fifteen inches long.
At the other end of the tube was a suction-chamber, an inch long by a
half-inch in diameter, with the end perforated, and containing a piece of
bocking as a filter. Midway of the tubing was an air-chamber. The tubing
long since dried and crumbled away from the metal. It is possible that I
used this instrument half a dozen times, though I do not recall a single
instance, and on breaking camp just before the Gettysburg Campaign, I
sent it, with some other effects, northward.
[Illustration: A DOUBLE-TURRETED MONITOR.]
I remember another filterer, somewhat simpler. It consisted of the same
kind of mouth-piece, with rubber tubing attached to a small conical piece
of pumice-stone, through which the water was filtered. Neither of these
was ever of any practical value.
I have spoken of the rapid improvements made in arms. This improvement
extended to all classes of fire-arms alike. Revolvers were no exception,
and _Colt’s_ revolver, which monopolized the field for some time, was
soon crowded in the race by _Smith and Wesson_, _Remington_, and others.
Thousands of them were sold monthly, and the newly fledged soldier
who did not possess a revolver, either by his own purchase, or as a
present from solicitous relatives, or admiring friends, or enthusiastic
business associates, was something of a curiosity. Of course a present
of this kind necessitated an outfit of special ammunition, and such
was at once procured. But the personal armory of many heroes was not
even then complete, and a dirk knife—a real “Arkansaw toothpick”—was no
unusual sight to be seen hanging from the belt of some of the incipient
but blood-thirsty warriors. The little town of Ashby in Massachusetts,
at one of its earliest war-meetings, voted “that each volunteer shall
be provided with a revolver, a bowie-knife, and a Bible, and shall
also receive ten dollars in money.” The thought did not appear to find
lodgement in the brain of the average soldier or his friends that by the
time the government had provided him with what arms, ammunition, and
equipments it was thought necessary for him to have, he would then be
loaded with about all he could bear, without adding a personal armory
and magazine. Nor did he realize that which afterwards in his experience
must have come upon him with convincing force, that by the time he had
done his duty faithfully and well with the arms which the government had
placed in his hands there would be little opportunity or need, even if
his ambition still held out, to fall back on his personal arsenal for
further supplies. Members of the later regiments got their eyes open to
this fact either through correspondence with men at the front, or by
having been associated with others who had seen service. But the troops
of ’61 and ’62 took out hundreds of revolvers only to lose them, give
them away, or throw them away; and as many regiments were forbidden by
their colonels to wear them, a large number were sent back to the North.
Revolvers were probably cheaper in Virginia, in those years, than in any
other state in the Union.
There was another invention that must have been sufficiently popular
to have paid the manufacturer a fair rate on his investment, and that
was the steel-armor enterprise. There were a good many men who were
anxious to be heroes, but they were particular. They preferred to be
_live_ heroes. They were willing to go to war and fight as never man
fought before, if they could only be insured against bodily harm. They
were not willing to assume all the risks which an enlistment involved,
without securing something in the shape of a drawback. Well, the iron
tailors saw and appreciated the situation and sufferings of this class
of men, and came to the rescue with a vest of steel armor, worth, as I
remember it, about a dozen dollars, and greaves. The latter, I think,
did not find so ready a market as the vests, which were comparatively
common. These iron-clad warriors admitted that when panoplied for the
fight their sensations were much as they might be if they were dressed
up in an old-fashioned air-tight stove; still, with all the discomforts
of this casing, they felt a little safer with it on than off in battle,
and they reasoned that it was the right and duty of every man to adopt
all honorable measures to assure his safety in the line of duty. This
seemed solid reasoning, surely; but, in spite of it all, a large number
of these vests never saw Rebeldom. Their owners were subjected to such a
storm of ridicule that they could not bear up under it. It was a stale
yet common joke to remind them that in action these vests must be worn
behind. Then, too, the ownership of one of them was taken as evidence of
faint-heartedness. Of this the owner was often reminded; so that when
it came to the packing of the knapsack for departure, the vest, taking
as it did considerable space, and adding no small weight to his already
too heavy burden, was in many cases left behind. The officers, whose
opportunity to take baggage along was greater, clung to them longest; but
I think that they were quite generally abandoned with the first important
reduction made in the luggage.
One of the first supposed-to-be useful, if not ornamental stupidities,
which some of the earlier troops took to themselves by order, was the
_Havelock_. True, its invention antedated the time of which I speak. It
was a foreign conception, and derived its name from an English general
who distinguished himself in the war in India, where they were worn in
1857. It was a simple covering of white linen for the cap, with a cape
depending for the protection of the neck from the sun. They may have been
very essential to the comfort of the troops in the Eastern climate, but,
while whole regiments went South with them, if one of these articles
survived active service three months I have yet to hear of it.
[Illustration: A HAVELOCK.]
Then there were fancy patent-leather haversacks, with two or three
compartments for the assortment of rations, which Uncle Sam was expected
to furnish. But those who invested in them were somewhat disgusted at
a little later stage of their service, when they were ordered to throw
away all such “high-toned” trappings and adopt the regulation pattern of
painted cloth. This was a bag about a foot square, with a broad strap
for the shoulder, into which soldiers soon learned to bundle all their
food and table furniture, which, I think I have elsewhere stated, after a
day’s hard march were always found in such a delightful hodge-podge.
[Illustration: A HAVERSACK AND DIPPER.]
Now and then an invention was to be found which was a real convenience.
I still have in my possession such a one, an article which, when not in
use, is a compact roll eight and one-half inches long and two inches in
diameter, and designed to hold pens, ink, and paper. Unrolled, it makes
a little tablet of the length given and five and one-half inches wide,
which was my writing-desk when no better was to be had.
The Turkish fez, with pendent tassel, was seen on the heads of some
soldiers. Zouave regiments wore them. They did very well to lie around
camp in, and in a degree marked their owner as a somewhat conspicuous man
among his fellows, but they were not tolerated on line; few of them ever
survived the first three months’ campaigning.
And this recalls the large number of the soldiers of ’62 who did not wear
the forage cap furnished by the government. They bought the “McClellan
cap,” so called, at the hatters’ instead, which in most cases faded out
in a month. This the government caps did not do, with all their awkward
appearance. They may have been coarse and unfashionable to the eye, but
the colors would stand. Nearly every man embellished his cap with the
number or letter of his company and regiment and the appropriate emblem.
For infantry this emblem is a bugle, for artillery two crossed cannons,
and for cavalry two crossed sabres.
[Illustration: A ZOUAVE.]
One other item occurs to me, not entirely germane to the chapter, yet
interesting enough to warrant its insertion. This was the great care
exercised to have all equipments prominently marked with the regiment,
company, and State to which the owner belonged. For example, on the back
of the knapsack of every man in a regiment appeared in large lettering
something like this: Co. B, 33d New York Regiment; or, if it was light
artillery, this, 10th Mass. Battery. Nor did the advertising stop here,
for the haversacks and canteens were often similarly labelled, and yet,
at the time, it seemed necessary to somebody that it should be done. At
any rate, nobody found any fault with it; and if it had been thought
desirable that each article of apparel should be similarly placarded,
there would have been a general acquiescence on the part of the untutored
citizen soldiery, who were in the best of humor, and with Pope (Alexander
not John) seemed to agree that “Whatever is is right.” But how many of
these loudly marked equipments survived the strife? Perhaps not one. The
knapsack may have been thrown aside in the first battle, and a simple
roll composed of the woollen and rubber blanket substituted for it. The
haversacks and canteens were soon lost, and new ones took their place;
and they lasted just as long and were just as safe as if conspicuously
marked. One of the comical sights of the service was to see Rebel
prisoners brought in having strapped on their backs knapsacks bearing
just such labelling as that which I have quoted. Of course, these were
trophies which they had either taken from prisoners or had picked up on
some battlefield or in the wake of the Union army, and appropriated to
their own use.
Light-artillerymen went to the front decorated with brass scales on their
shoulders, but, finding an utter absence of such ornaments on the persons
of soldiers who had been in action, and feeling sensitive about being
known as recruits, these decorations soon disappeared. Theoretically,
they were worn to ward off the blows of a sabre aimed by cavalrymen at
the head; practically, it is doubtful whether they ever served such a
purpose.
[Illustration: A SPENCER RIFLE]