December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
"Memoir on Artillery." Metz. Lithography of Dupy and Savernier. Rue Precheresses. 1828. In original blue board paper wraps, 81pp. and 2 folding plates. Inscribed on cover in ink "R. L. Baker" and "Memoir on Artillery / translated by / Lieut Huger / U.S. Artillery"; title page bearing the signature of “Major [Rufus L.] Baker / Ordnance.” An exceedingly important, early military treatise not listed in OCLC and probably the only surviving copy of an exceedingly small private printing. The text on the cover is in the hand of the translator and the entire text within the book is a lithographed copy of Huger's handwritten translation of a French treatise on horse on light artillery. On the inside of the back cover is a handwritten formula for preparing "Algerine Cement." The two folding plates are from the French manual, the first showing a new stock-trail fieldpiece and limber of the new French system and the same from the long-established Gribeauval system with split-trail carriages; the second plate contrasts the new limber with attached caisson against the long "wurst" type wagon of the former system. Benjamin Huger (1805-1877) was born into one of the leading families of the Charleston, SC society; of Huguenot descent, he was fluent in French. In 1821 he entered the U.S. Military Academy and graduated eighth out of 37 cadets four years later. On 1 JUL 1825 he was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant, then promoted to second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery on that same date. He served as an “acting topographical engineer” until 1828 when he took a leave of absence from the Army to visit Europe from 1828 to 1830, almost certainly accompanying Lieutenant Daniel Tyler who had been sent in an official capacity to observe the French Gribeauval artillery system and sent back 300 lithographic copies of the official manuals governing field and heavy artillery. At the same, France had decided to discard the system and adopt stock-trail carriages based on the English system and Huger’s translation of a manual advocating the advantages of such a system was apparently presented by him to leading officers in the U.S. artillery and ordnance branches, among them then-Captain Rufus L. Baker –this sole-surviving Huger translation being his copy. PROVENANCE: LTC Rufus L. Baker and by descent in the Baker-Weir family until 20 May 2016, when acquired as lot 16 of Boyd Auction’s sale of the family collections. CONDITION: light soiling and scattered chipping to the covers, the internal contents very good, with light toning and foxing.