The interest which is beginning to be awakened in rifle-practice is the germ of a great movement, which it is the duty of all who have the national welfare at heart to use their influence in guiding and directing, as may easily be done, so that only good may result from it. Let it be countenanced and encouraged by the men, in every community, whose words and example give tone to public opinion, and it will become, as it ought, a means of health-giving and generous rivalry, while it infuses a sense of national power, which we, of all people on earth, ought to derive from the consciousness that it is based upon the physical ability of the people to maintain their own rights. If, however, it is frowned upon and sneered at, as unworthy the attention of a morally and intellectually cultivated people, we shall draw upon ourselves the curse of creating a sin,—of poisoning at its source a fountain whose elements in themselves are not only innocent, but abounding in the best ingredients for the development of manly physical and intellectual character.
We trust, however, that such a caution is unnecessary. If there are any among us who, after the past year's experience, can look with doubt or coldness upon such a movement as we have indicated, we should hardly care to waste words in arguing the point. That such a feeling should have heretofore existed is not, perhaps, surprising. The possibility of such an emergency as has come upon us has seemed so improbable, not to say impossible, that it has appeared like a waste of time and labor to prepare for it; and the result has been, that we had come to look upon military education with much the same feeling as that with which we regard the pugilistic art, as of questionable, if not decidedly disreputable character, and such as a nation of our respectability could by no possibility have occasion for.
From this dream of security we have been unexpectedly and very disagreeably awakened, by finding ourselves engaged in a war whose magnitude we were at first slow to appreciate; and it was not till we found ourselves ominously threatened by a foreign power, while still engaged in a fearful struggle at home, that we seemed to be fully aroused to the necessity of being at all times prepared for defence.
Then there came over us a universal consciousness of undeveloped strength,—the feeling of a powerful man, who knows nothing of "the noble art of self-defence," at finding himself suddenly confronted by a professional boxer, who demands, with an ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and hopes that the occasion may serve as a precedent for Mr. Bully himself to avoid the corns of his neighbors for the future.
It is comparatively but few years since the success of Colonel Colt in the application of the repeating principle to fire-arms was regarded as a feat in which every American felt a national pride. It was such a vast improvement upon anything which had previously existed, and the importance of it was so obvious, that it became as much a matter of necessity to the whole civilized world as iron-clad steamers have become since the demonstration of their power which was given by the performances of the Merrimack and the Monitor. And, indeed, the best evidence of the universal acknowledgment of this fact is afforded by the innumerable imitations and attempts at improvement which have since made their appearance at home and abroad.
We have used Colt's 51-inch rifle, and also his rifled carbine, very freely, and tested them thoroughly for range, precision, penetration, and capacity for continued service, and for our own use in hunting are entirely satisfied with the performance of this rifle, and should be at a loss to imagine any possible demand of a hunter's weapon which it would fail to meet.
An able and interesting article on "Rifled Guns" in the "Atlantic Monthly" for October, 1859, has the following passage: "No breech-loading gun is so trustworthy in its execution as a muzzle-loader; for, in spite of all precautions, the bullets will go out irregularly. We have cut out too many balls of Sharpe's rifle from the target, which had entered sidewise, not to be certain on this point; and we know of no other breech-loader so little likely to err in this respect."
We cannot speak of Sharpe's rifle from our own experience, but from one of the best riflemen of our acquaintance we have heard the same report,—that the cones will occasionally turn and strike sidewise. We do not believe, however, that this fault is a necessary consequence of the peculiar method of loading; but, whatever may be the cause, with Colt's rifle the evil does not exist. For the past year we have practised with it at ranges of from fifty to six hundred yards, and have fired something like two thousand rounds; and only three balls have struck the target sidewise, two of which were ricochets, and the third struck a limb of a bush a few feet in front of the target. In no other instance has the shot failed to cut a perfectly true round hole, and these exceptions would of course be equally applicable to any gun. With the latest pattern of Colt's rifle we have never known an instance of a premature discharge of either of the chambers; though, from the repeated inquiries which have been made, it is obvious that such is the general apprehension. In reply to the common assertion, that much of the explosive force must be lost by escape of gas between the chamber and the barrel, we simply state the fact that we have repeatedly shot through nine inches of solid white cedar timber at forty yards. Finally, at two hundred yards, we find no difficulty in making an average of five inches from the centre, in ten successive shots, of which eight inches is the extreme variation. This is good enough for any ordinary purposes of hunting or military service,—for anything, in short, but gambling or fancy work; and for our own use, against either man or beast, we should ask no better weapon. But we should be very far from advocating its general adoption in military service; and, indeed, our own experience with it has brought the conviction that the repeating principle in any form is decidedly objectionable in guns for the use of ordinary troops of the line. We do not extend the objection to pistols in their proper place, but speak now solely of rifles in the hands of infantry.
In action, the time of each soldier must of necessity be divided between the processes of loading and firing; and it is better that these should come in regular alternate succession than that a series of rapid shots should be succeeded by the longer interval required for inserting a number of charges. It would be hard to assign definitely the most important reasons for this conviction, which are based upon, elements that prevail so generally in the moral and physical characters of men, and which we have so often seen developed in the excitement of hunting large game, that we can readily appreciate the motives which have made sagacious military men very shy of trusting miscellaneous bodies of soldiers with a weapon whose possible advantages are more than counterbalanced by the probable mischief that must ensue from the want of such instinctive power of manipulation as could result only from constant and long-continued familiarity, and which even then might be paralyzed in very many instances by nervous excitement.
We would not, however, be understood as condemning breech-loading guns for military service. On the contrary, we are firm in the conviction that they are destined to supersede entirely every species of muzzle-loaders, which will thenceforward be regarded only as curious evidences of the difficulty of making an advance of a single step, which, when taken, seems so simple that it appears incredible that it was not thought of before. The ingenuity of thousands of our most skilful men is now turned in this direction, and stimulated by a demand which will obviously insure a fortune to the successful competitor. The advantages of a breech-loading gun consist in the greater rapidity with which it can be loaded and fired, and the avoidance of the exposure incident to the motions of drawing the ramrod and ramming the cartridge. We are well aware that rapid firing is in itself an evil, and that a common complaint with officers is that the men will not take time enough in aiming to insure efficiency; but granting this, it by no means follows that the evil will be increased by the ability to load rapidly. Its remedy lies in thorough discipline and practical knowledge of the use of the gun; and the soldier will be more likely to take time for aiming, if he knows he can be ready to repeat his shot almost instantly.