AEMY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



form by 35-pound charges. The penetration 

 at 1,000 yards was 9'93 inches, while that of 

 the unchambered rifle of the same caliber is 

 7-73 inches, and that of the English 9-inch rifle 

 8-76 inches. In all kinds and calibers up to 11- 

 inch bores the method of converting old guns 

 into the newer forms, both muzzle- and breech- 

 loading, has proved a success. Four 12-inch 

 breech-loading rifled guns were directed to be 

 constructed in the bill making an appropria- 

 tion of $400,000 for armament. The reluc- 

 tance of contractors to take the orders for guns 

 heavier than the foundry plants are adapted to 

 caused a delay; but the contracts were finally 

 placed. The manufacture of small-arms in the 

 National Armory during the fiscal year aggre- 

 gated 20,387 rifles and carbines. The reserve 

 supply on hand at the end of the year was 

 22,979, including the manufactures of the year. 

 The Springfield breech-loader is still retained. 

 No form of magazine gun has yet been brought 

 to the point of perfection which would war- 

 rant its general use in the army. The Hotch- 

 kiss type is the most promising one, and is 

 being developed and improved, and, if success- 

 ful, will probably be adopted, though the bolt 

 and handle are not looked upon with favor in 

 the service. The Chief of Ordnance, General 

 Benet, has recommended that the bayonet and 

 the saber both be abolished. The General of 

 the Army gave orders for studies and experi- 

 ments with the design to have the ramrod 

 shaped so that it would serve the additional 

 purpose of a bayonet or foil after the manner 

 devised by Lieutenant Zalinski, ard for the man- 

 ufacture of a light, efficient knife or trowel for 

 digging in the ground and other uses. Colonel 

 Benton, commanding the Armory, has produced 

 a combined bayonet and ramrod, which is a sim- 

 ple modification of one used in Hall's breech- 

 loading carbine, invented seventy years ago. 

 It occupies the same space as the ordinary ram- 

 rod, is strong and efficient, reduces the weight 

 carried by the soldier, and does away with the 

 bayonet-scabbard. In the butt of the gun is a 

 receptacle for the screw-driver, cartridge-ex- 

 tractor, and wiper. A trowel-knife has also 

 been devised. A limited number of both in- 

 struments have been furnished to soldiers for 

 trial. Trials at extreme ranges have demon- 

 strated that the service-rifle is able to wound 

 or kill up to nearly 3,000 yards, and that the 

 carbine with the rifle-cartridge made for the 

 service carries as far. The 500-grain bullet 

 fired from any rifle with sufficient twist ranges 

 nearly 3,700 yards. Ordinary variations in the 

 weight of powder-charges do not affect eleva- 

 tion at very long ranges, velocities approxi- 

 mating each other. The range of the Govern- 

 ment rifle may be made, according to Colonel 

 Benton and Captain Greer who made the trials, 

 as long as that of any in the world by pre- 

 paring the cartridge as at present, but with 

 an increased weight of ball. 



The case of suspected hazing of the colored 

 eadet Whittaker, at West Point, in April, who 



was found with the cartilage of his ears cut 

 open, and with other injuries and marks of 

 violence, which he asserted had been commit- 

 ted upon him during the night by a band of stu- 

 dents of the Academy, aroused considerable pop- 

 ular excitement. The authorities of the school 

 were convinced from the first that the tale was 

 an imposture, and that the cadet had inflicted 

 the marks upon himself for the purpose of ob- 

 taining an excuse from certain examinations, 

 or from some other motive. An investigation 

 was entered upon, in which Whittaker exhibit- 

 ed a threatening anonymous letter, which he 

 said had come to him several days before the 

 alleged outrage. The presence of the Attorney- 

 General, who was requested to watch the pro- 

 ceedings of the trial as a representative of the 

 Government, was resented by the commandant 

 and other officers. No one was implicated be- 

 sides the supposed sufferer by the evidence 

 brought out at the trial. In the yearly report 

 of Major-General Schofield, commanding the 

 post, the officers and teachers are defended 

 from the charge of showing disfavor to the col- 

 ored cadets, and the students are exonerated 

 from the imputation of hazing Whittaker. The 

 regulations which require white cadets to sit at 

 the same mess with colored students, to meet 

 them and hold the necessary intercourse with 

 them in the class-room, on parade, and in other 

 places, General Schofield considers an invasion 

 of their social liberty. The two races are not 

 required to occupy the same dormitories. The 

 white cadets respect the legal rights of colored 

 cadets more scrupulously than those of each 

 other. " The enforced association of the white 

 cadets with their colored companions, to which 

 they have never been accustomed before they 

 came from home, appears to have destroyed any 

 disposition which before existed to indulge in 

 such association. The intellectual inferiority 

 of the lately enslaved race is a reason for the 

 want of success of colored cadets at West 

 Point. One out of the eleven appointees has 

 passed through the course and graduated with 

 credit, though without social recognition. The 

 case of the cadet Whittaker is the natural re- 

 sult of the assumption that the enfranchised 

 race have attained in half a generation the 

 social, moral,and intellectual level which the 

 average white man has reached in hundreds of 

 years. . . . He imagined that officers who had 

 fought to make him free, and who were labori- 

 ously striving to teach him what he could not 

 comprehend, were governed in their conduct 

 toward him by 'hate of the nigger,' and that 

 cadets who would neither touch him nor speak 

 to him, could be believed to have tied his 

 hands and feet, and cut his hair and ears, and 

 that so tenderly as not to hurt him. He had 

 not reached that point in civilization where it 

 is first apprehended that human nature may be 

 governed by motives other than love, hatred, or 

 fear." The cadet Whittaker was subsequent- 

 ly dropped from the roll of the college, having 

 failed to satisfy the requirements of the stand- 



