Even to the end the "regular" chiefs of artillery insisted that the Napoleon gun, a light smooth-bore twelve-pounder cannon, was our best field-piece, and at a time when a great campaign had reduced our forces so that a reduction of artillery was advisable, I received an order to send to the rear my three-inch rifled ordnance guns and retain my Napoleons.

The order was issued by a regular officer of much experience, but I procured its suspension in my own command by a direct appeal to the army commander.

There was no more doubt then than there is to-day of the superiority of rifled guns, either for long-range practice with shells or in close work with canister.

They were so much lighter that we could jump them across a rough country where the teams could hardly move a Napoleon.

We could subdue our adversaries' fire with them, when their smooth-bores could not reach us.