Measures for Improving the Sea-Coast Defense
“To remedy these defects, and at the same time provide a system of fire control applicable to the defense of all our harbors, orders were issued in 1887 for mapping the harbors, establishing base lines, and arranging the extremities for the use of angle-measuring instruments, and graduating traverse circles in azimuth. Systematic artillery instruction and target practice were ordered, and a system of reports suited to the preservation and utilization of all data resulting from the firing.
“Thus, for the first time in the history of the country, an effort was made to establish and develop a system of artillery fire control adapted to our fortifications and armament. In 1888 General Schofield succeeded General Sheridan in command of the army, and in December issued ‘General Orders, No. 108’ from the headquarters of the army. This order extended to all the artillery troops of the army the system of artillery instruction and target practice which had been established in the Division of the Atlantic. As it had not been found practicable to equip all the artillery posts with the necessary appliances for carrying out the provisions of the order, the eleven principal posts on the Eastern, Western, and Southern coasts were designated as artillery posts of instruction, and provided with all the guns, implements, and instruments necessary for the instruction and target practice of such of the neighboring garrisons as were unprovided with proper facilities.
“To insure the proper execution of the order, there was appropriated March 2, 1889, twenty thousand dollars to be expended under the direct supervision of the Board of Ordnance and Fortifications, which had been created by the Fortification Appropriation Act of September 22, 1888, and of which General Schofield was the president. The Army Regulations of 1889 were published on February 9, and paragraph 382 authorized the commanding general of each geographical division within which were the headquarters of one or more artillery regiments to designate, with the approval of the general commanding the army, a division inspector of artillery target practice, whose duty it was to make inspections with a view to insuring uniform, thorough, and systematic artillery instruction.
“On June 11, 1889, ‘General Orders, No. 49’ was issued from the headquarters of the army, in anticipation of the more complete equipment of the artillery posts with the apparatus necessary for the proper conduct of artillery instruction and target practice. The course of instruction covered the use of plane tables, telescopic and other sights, electrical firing-machines, chronographs, velocimeters, anemometers, and other meteorological instruments, stop-watches, signaling, telegraphy, vessel tracking, judging distance, and, in short, everything essential to the scientific use of the guns. By ‘General Orders, No. 62, Headquarters of the Army,’ July 2, 1889, Lieutenant T. H. Bliss, Fort Artillery, Aide-de-Camp to General Schofield commanding, was announced as inspector of small arms and artillery practice. As an inducement to greater application on the part of the student officers of the Artillery School and of the Infantry and Cavalry School, the distinction of ‘honor graduate’ was conferred on all officers who had graduated, or should graduate, either first or second from the Artillery School, or first, second, or third from the Infantry and Cavalry School: the same to appear with their names in the Army Register as long as such graduates should continue on the active or retired list of the army....”