A NOTE ON KING HOWITZERS | |
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At the 1965 Annual Meeting of The Company, Member Robert Mulligan provided some interesting addenda to the article on the
2 3/4 inch U. S. (King) Howitzer, which appeared in the MC&H XIII, pp. 1-7. In reading Catharina
V. R. Bonney's A Legacy of Historical Gleanings, he noted an account by Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer of the New York
Volunteers, and a veteran of Wayne's 1794 campaign, who had seen two guns which almost certainly must have been "King"
howitzers. In early October of 1812, Van Renssalaer was permitted to make several visits to the British headquarters at
Fort George, opposite Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario, to attend to the wants of American prisoners of war. Of this experience,
he wrote the following:
How accurately Van Rensselaer observed in comparing the wheel size to wheelbarrow wheels is uncertain, but some of the older type wheels, which turned on gudgeons, have been measured and found to be from 20 to 22 inches in diameter. This is about nine inches smaller than the wheels on the replica carriages, although the total weight of the latter compares favorably with the original weight given by Wayne. It should be remembered that much of the weight in my carriage is in the wheels. Don H. Berkebile 1 Catharina V. R. Bonney, A Legacy of Historical Gleanings, Albany, 1875, I, p. 252 |