. The Civil War . Joslyn for an improvement in Breech-lciading Fire-arms. It was the Joslyn patent which Eli Thayer |)uichasedand adapted for use in a small rifled cannon. In a letter to President Lincoln written on SeptemluT 21,1861, Thayer advised the organization of companies otsoldiers armed with twenty of these weapons, which, heclaimed, combined the advantages of artUlery and infantryrifles. Solightin weight (he claimed they weighed in at some-thing like 200 or pounds — quite an underestimate! thatthey could be pulled into place by men rather than horses andso small that they could
. The Civil War . Joslyn for an improvement in Breech-lciading Fire-arms. It was the Joslyn patent which Eli Thayer |)uichasedand adapted for use in a small rifled cannon. In a letter to President Lincoln written on SeptemluT 21,1861, Thayer advised the organization of companies otsoldiers armed with twenty of these weapons, which, heclaimed, combined the advantages of artUlery and infantryrifles. Solightin weight (he claimed they weighed in at some-thing like 200 or pounds — quite an underestimate! thatthey could be pulled into place by men rather than horses andso small that they could be placed anywhere a rifleman could,the Ellsworth Guns nevertheless fired a seventeen-ounce balla distance of three miles (at three degrees elevationt, that is,artillery and not infantry range. Moreover, only a small num-ber of men was required to operate the guns i he did not say pre-cisely how small a number), and they could easily get nittwenty rounds per minute. Thayer ga%e as his address W il- LINCOLN LORE. Courtesy G. L Dvlsranip FIGURE 5. This close-up photograph of the muzzleshows the rifling (visible at the edge of the shadows atthe lower Iight of the bore). lards Hotel in Washington, and he had doubtless come downfrom Massachusetts to lobby for the purchase of the P]lls-worth cannon — at what he claimed was a very low price,especially when compared to ordinary field artillery. Thayer, an ex-Congi-essman and a maverick Republicanwho had voted for Lincolns nomination at the Wigwam, hadsome influence. Three days later Lincoln drew up a memoran-dum for purchase of twenty guns,. . made equal, or superiorto the Ellsworth gun at $350 each. Lincoln noted that the gunhad recently been exhibited to him. The twenty cannons were manufactured in Thayers home town, Worcester,Massachusetts, by L. W. Pond at the factory of Goddard, Rice& Company. Some improvements were made on the modelLincoln had seen, because Charles Kingsbury, who examinedthe guns in November for the Army, rep
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectweapons, bookyear1861
