MARSHALL'S PRACTICAL MARINE GUNNERY; CONTAINING A VIEW OF THE MAGNITUDE, WEIGHT, DESCRIPTION & USE, OF EVERY ARTICLE USED IN THE SEA GUNNER'S DEPARTMENT, IN THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Marshall, George:

Edité par Norfolk: Printed by Thomas G. Broughton, and Published by C. Hall, 1822.

A propos de cet article

A rare, early gunnery manual for the United States Navy, published in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1822, and owned by a naval officer who participated in the Wilkes Expedition. The author, George Marshall (1782 1855), was a gunner in the United States Navy. Born on the Aegean island of Rhodes in Greece, Marshall had likely made his way to the United States by 1805. He enlisted as a seaman in the U.S. Navy in 1807 and was stationed at the Washington Navy Yard where he began training in gunnery. He received his warrant as a gunner on July 15, 1809, and went on to fight in the War of 1812 as part of Commodore Isaac Chauncey's Lake Ontario Fleet. In 1815, Marshall was assigned to the Mediterranean squadron aboard the USS Erie, protecting American ships from piracy in wake of the Second Barbary War. By 1820, Marshall was back in the United States, stationed at the Gosport Navy Yard (now the Norfolk Naval Shipyard) in Portsmouth, Virginia. While there he published the present volume, Marshall's Practical Marine Gunnery, in 1822. As Marshall explains in the preface, his "compendium of Nautical Gunnery originated in a view to individual and exclusive convenience of the Author," who, "[w]hile performing the station he has occupied during twelve years in the United States' Navy.had constantly to regret, the want of a circumstantial and detailed view of the duties of his department. And finding his unassisted memory, inadequate to a prompt and easy command of his own experience, he saw the utility of methodizing and reducing, to established rules, the observations wherewith an active and practical life had furnished him." The manual describes in detail the equipment and artillery necessary for outfitting a naval warship and provides a guide and instructions for the various duties a gunner might be called upon to perform. Among its contents are "A List of Sea Stores and Outfits Required to Equip a Man of War for a Cruize," "A Table of Questions and Answers, useful in Gunnery," and "Instructions for a Gunner in the U.S. Navy" as ordered by the Board of Navy Commissioners. The manual includes a variety of calculations, tables, forms, and instructions. Marshall gives, for example, the various proportions of saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal for making different kinds of gunpowder as well as the chemical compositions necessary for making skyrockets, fires, lights, and for destroying particular kinds of objects. Also provided are a host of practical instructions on making phosphorous of lime, alum phosphorous, different kinds of solder, drying oil, and black varnish. At rear is a folding form of a gunner's weekly and monthly expenditures on board a U.S. ship of war. As Marshall states in the advertisement, the "Book has been strictly examined by some of the most experienced Officers in the United States' Navy, particularly by captains Arthur Sinclair, Lewis Warrington and William M. Crane, and they have authorized me to say that they consider it a useful work for all classes of Officers, but more particularly for the junior class." Sinclair had recently established a school for midshipmen aboard the Guerriere at the Gosport Navy Yard, and Marshall's book would have been a useful manual for new cadets. Marshall was promoted to Master Gunner in 1841. He served in the Navy for over forty-six years and died of yellow fever during the outbreak that struck Norfolk and Portsmouth in 1855. This copy of Marshall's Gunnery bears the ownership inscription of "G.M. Colvocoresses, U.S.N." on the titlepage. Like Marshall, George M. Colvocoresses (1816 1872) was a native of Greece. Born on the island of Chios, he immigrated to the United States before going on to become an officer in the U.S. Navy. In 1852, Colvocoresses published an account of the Wilkes Expedition in which he took part. He went on to command the ship Saratoga during the American Civil War. He was murdered by thieves in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 3, 1872, while on his way to New York. This co.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: MARSHALL'S PRACTICAL MARINE GUNNERY; CONTAINING A VIEW OF THE MAGNITUDE, WEIGHT, DESCRIPTION & USE, OF EVERY ARTICLE USED IN THE SEA GUNNER'S DEPARTMENT, IN THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES.
• Éditeur: Norfolk: Printed by Thomas G. Broughton, and Published by C. Hall, 1822.