Title: From the Earth to the Moon

Author: Jules Verne

CHAPTER I

THE GUN CLUB

During the War of the Rebellion, a new and influential club was

established in the city of Baltimore in the State of Maryland.

It is well known with what energy the taste for military matters

became developed among that nation of ship-owners, shopkeepers,

and mechanics. Simple tradesmen jumped their counters to become

extemporized captains, colonels, and generals, without having

ever passed the School of Instruction at West Point;

nevertheless; they quickly rivaled their compeers of the old

continent, and, like them, carried off victories by dint of

lavish expenditure in ammunition, money, and men.

But the point in which the Americans singularly distanced the

Europeans was in the science of gunnery. Not, indeed, that

their weapons retained a higher degree of perfection than

theirs, but that they exhibited unheard-of dimensions, and

consequently attained hitherto unheard-of ranges. In point of

grazing, plunging, oblique, or enfilading, or point-blank

firing, the English, French, and Prussians have nothing to

learn; but their cannon, howitzers, and mortars are mere

pocket-pistols compared with the formidable engines of the

American artillery.

This fact need surprise no one. The Yankees, the first

mechanicians in the world, are engineers-- just as the Italians

are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians-- by right of birth.

Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them

applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.

Witness the marvels of Parrott, Dahlgren, and Rodman.