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4A THE SUNDAY CONSTITUTION, October 10, 1976Fort Si!i Museum Working To ‘Reactivate’ 1 808 Battery Of Horse ArtilleryTHE Fort Sill Museum is going to roll history back 168 years to the Capt. George Peter 1808 battery ofhorse artillery, the first horse artilleryin the U.S. Army.Within a year or so, we’ll be seeingthis living museum on parade, with soldiers in plumed helmets and horsesin harness and pulling equipment like that of 1808.But it ain’t easy.Gillett Griswold, director of the FieldArtillery Museum; Randy Steffen, the foremost authority on the U.S. horse soldier, and Walter (Buddy) Jones, curator of collections at the museum, have had their heads together for a week pondering the mystery of exactly what the unit looked like. There are no samples of 1808 harnesses.The 1808 rig will be an alternate to the museum’s horsedrawn unit of World War I vintage. The same soldiers and horses will be used for either the 1808 or 1918 outfit.The museum’s horse unit, organized several years ago with horses donated by friends of the museum, has become one of the most paraded and popular symbols of Fort Sill and the Field Artillery. The unit paraded in the inaugural of Richard Nixon and has appeared at hundreds of parades, rodeos and fairs. Wherever it appears, the Fort Sill Field Artillery Half Sectionserves as the living symbol of the Field Artillery' and Fort Sill.The 1808 battery was the first in which the gun teams were owned by the Army rather than contracted from civilians, Griswold said. He pointed out that horse artillery is distinguished from horsedrawTi artillery in that all horse artillerymen were mounted, to make the unit as light and mobile as possible and enable it to move with the same speed as cavalry.The new gear will include uniforms, harness, cannon carriage and limber, and also a separate four-wheeled ammunition wagon used during the period.The trio is poring over research done by the late Col. Harry C. Carter. Field Artillery’, founder and first curator of the Field Artillery Museum. Larter first published his research in the Journal of Military Historians in 1952.This trio is laying plans to “resurrect * the 1808 Capt. Peter battery, the first horse artillery in the U.S. Army, as part of the Fort Sill Museum s horse unit. Studying a painting of a field exercise of the first unit, done by the late Col. Harry Larter, and construction plans for harness of the 1 840s are, from left, Randy Steffen, artist and historian; Gillett Griswold, Fort Sill Museum director, and Waiter Budd) Jones, curator of collections at the museum. (Staff Photo)The article was titled. “Materiel of the First American Light Artillerv 1808-1809.’*The originals of Larter’s illustrations are in the Fort Sill Museum collection. Some were donated by Brig. Gen. Charles J. West of New York, who wasgiven them by Larter Others were presented to the museum by Larter himself“To reconstruct details and specs of the 1808 harness, we know that Henry Dearborn, secretary of war at the time, relied heavily upon the French system of artillery, both for the guns, carriages and equipment, and which were described in Louis de Tousard’s ‘American Artillerist’s Companion.’ Griswold said.Also under study are actual construction plates or drawings for the model 1841 Field Artillery harness and equipment. published in 1848. and WilliamE. Birkhimer’s “Historical Sketch of the Artillery, U.S. Army” published in 1884.The museum has original guns of the period, one of which will be mounted on a gun carriage and limber now being fabricated by John Corbin, an dexpert wheeiright and muzzle loading gun carriage maker of Hollister, Mo.The iron six pounder was used by American artillery during the period. It switched from bronze to iron because of a shortage of copper and tin and an abundance of iron ore. In the 1830s, the artillery* switched back to bronze.Besides the authentic weapon, the museum also already has reproductions of uniforms worn by the battery. The uniforms were acquired through bicentennial funding. The 1808 outfit used four horses to the gun team andfour to the ammunition wagon.Randy Steffen, who last February was awarded the American Exemplar Medal, top award to an American, bythe Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, took time off from his sculpting and his other work at 'his ranch in Dublin, Tex. to aid in the Capt. Peter battery project. He-is an associate curator of the Field Artillery Museum. His “The Horse Soldiers” in four volumes, is to be published in 1977 by the University of Oklahoma Press.Randy plans to draw the specifications for the harness for the 1808 battery'. The harness maker has not yet been selected.If a 168-year-old horse artillery battery can be brought back to life Griswold, Steffen and Jones are the ones who can do it.
Newspaper Details
Lawton Sunday Constitution
Lawton, Oklahoma, US
Sun, Oct 10, 1976
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Metropolitan L.
Oklahoma, USA 09 Jul 2024
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