[ARTILLERY SCHOOL AT FORTRESS MONROE]
HISTORICAL NOTICE.
The Artillery School of the United States Army at Fortress Monroe, was organized and opened April 1, 1868, under a code of regulations and programme of instruction drawn up by Col. William F. Barry (who was placed in command from the start), and approved by the General of the Army. After two years of experience the code and programme were revised, and the present system established. The class of 1868 and of 1869, consisted, each, of twenty lieutenants of artillery, and of the whole number, thirty-eight were sent back to their regiments after having passed a satisfactory examination. To this number at the close of the school year (April) 1871, sixteen more out of the class of twenty were found qualified to return to their respective regiments; twenty more are now in the progress of instruction, constituting together one-half of all the officers of that grade belonging to the artillery.
COURSE OF INSTRUCTION.[16]
The course of theoretical instruction embraces the subjects of mathematics, ordnance, and gunnery, military engineering and surveying, military history, and military, constitutional, and international law. The method of pursuing these studies is very similar to that pursued at the Military Academy at West Point, viz., by recitations, questions, and demonstrations at the blackboard. In military history each officer is required, in addition to his regular recitations, to prepare and read before the class and staff of the school two essays or memoirs upon some battle, campaign, or the military events of some epoch of peculiar interest.
The topics for these essays are selected by the instructor in military history, with the approval of the commandant and superintendent of instruction, and are generally confined to events not prior to the last two decades of the eighteenth century.
The necessary maps, instruments, and apparatus for the elucidation or practical application of the various subjects of the entire range of the theoretical course have to a considerable extent been supplied to the school by requisitions upon the Engineer and Ordnance Departments of the Army. They are kept in active use, and are of the greatest value.
Instructions in the theoretical course is confined to the months of autumn, winter, and the early spring, except instruction in mathematics, which unavoidably has to be given during the months of May, June, July, and August.
The course of practical instruction is pursued, as the weather permits, throughout the entire year, but is more closely attended to during the months of summer and autumn. This course consists of the service of every species of gun, howitzer, or mortar in use in the United States military service; of the use of the various kinds of projectiles and fuses; the laying of platforms; the use of plane-tables, and telemeters, for ascertaining ranges; of mechanical manœuvres; transportation and other handling of all kinds of ordnance, and particularly of the 15-inch guns and their carriages, and of 13-inch mortars and their beds, and of other heavy material which has been adopted into the artillery of the United States.
The practical course also includes very full target practice with every description of ordnance; the duties of the laboratory, as far as they immediately concern officers of artillery; and the study of and recitation in the tactics for light and heavy artillery, and as much of the tactics for infantry as is essential for artillery officers.