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Cannon Blasts
by L. VanLoan Naisawald
From my earliest memories I was facinated by things military. Initially it was studying the naval actions of the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American War. Then WWI captured my interest. Next came the allure of the navy's lighter-than-air service with its massive dirigibles of the 1930sñthe Akron and the Macon. With their crashing and passing from the scene my interest turned to land warfare. That led to an attempt to enter West Pointñan unsuccessful event due to not-up-to-par eyesight. What followed was four years at The Virginia Military Institute where eye requirements were not as stringent. But here I daily faced the four small Civil War-era 6-pounder smoothbore cannon that flank Stonewall Jackson's statue on the parade ground. Add to this the fact that I had opted to be field artillery trained, something allowed in ROTC training in those years, followed by a commission as an artillery lieutenant and then a serving officer, and my interest in Civil War field artillery was born. And, it is an interest and study that continues to this day.
Field artillery has had a great tradition in American military history. It begins with the incredible trek of John Knox's hauling captured British guns across snow-covered New England from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston to provide Washington's under-armed army with guns. Then there is the incident, beautifully portrayed in painting, of Alexander Hamilton's sweeping the streets of Trenton in that much-needed Continental victory of the Revolution. The Mexican War brought forth the colorful incidents of Ringgold's and Duncan's batteries. The legends and the traditions were there for both sides to build upon.
Colonel Jennings C. Wise's work The Long Arm of Lee, written in 1915, still stands as the monumental work on the history of the field artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia. But the story of the gunners of the Army of the Potomac had gone untold. My friendship with the late Bruce Catton resulted in my undertaking this task. The result was the publication of my book, Grape and Canister in 1962. Since that time the book has been reprinted some five times and a revised second edition was published in 1999. I have been privileged to give countless talks over the years on the Blue artillery. During these talks I have been occasionally teased about being a Yankee gunner when I was really a dyed-in-the-wool Rebel who had graduated from the South's main artillery officer supply source. Accordingly, I soon put together a talk that covered the "other side." And, in the process I became acutely aware of the frightful disadvantages under which Lee's gunners had to operate yet still performed