WAR DEPARTMENT,

QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., June 25, 1861.

Honorable S. CAMERON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: Recurring to our conversation of this afternoon I beg to recommend that measures be at once taken to prepare carriages, caissons, ammunition wagons, battery wagons, and harness for the iron 6-pounder guns, rifled and smooth, which you inform me you have ordered.

The Ordnance Department must have some supply in store, but to supply these guns to replace those which will be broken, lost, or destroyed in service a full supply for all the new guns ordered would not be too many to procure.

As the arsenals are already taxed it would be well to send to some of the great railroad car-shops, now idle, artillery carriages as models from which they can quickly manufacture all that are needed. They have the machinery and the stock, the workmen skilled in precisely this sort of work, and should have been long since employed in furnishing this most effective material of war.

With new troops, such as must be employed in this contest, a full supply of field artillery is of even greater importance than with veterans.

There are many foundries in the country which could manufacture the projectiles needed for these rifled guns. They should be set to work.

Harness should also be procured by contract.

I submit herewith a sketch* of a projectile which I do not think is embarrassed with any patent claim, and which, I have no doubt, would be cheap and effective so long as the caliber is not over six pounds.

M. C. MEIGS,

Brigadier-General and Quartermaster-General.

ORDNANCE OFFICE,

Washington, June 25, 1861.

Honorable SIMON CAMERON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: In compliance with your instructions of the 22nd instant I shall order from the Phoenix Iron Company 300 wrought-iron field pieces-200 rifled and 100 smooth bore. Before giving the order it will be necessary to furnish the company with a drawing to work by. That drawing is now in preparation by the Ordnance Board. Permit me to suggest and recommend that all these guns be rifled. This is essential to uniformity of ammunition and will secure efficiency for all the guns instead of only two-thirds of them. The diameter of the bore cannot exceed 3.35 without making the projectile (suitable for a rifle cannon) too heavy for convenient transportation in the field. This bore will give such projectiles about ten pounds weight. I propose to fix the price at $250 per gun, which will be about 25 cents per pound of wrought iron, as I estimate the finished gun's weight to be not more than 1,000 pounds; under this weight, rather than above. This is a liberal price even for the first guns of this kind, and allows a fair margin for profit. Of the rifled projectiles heretofore submitted to the

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*Omitted.

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