The Revolutionary War was a major turning point for the American Colonies. It was not until the American Colonies acquired the ability to manufacture their own artillery that they had a chance to defeat the British. This paper will discuss how artillery made its way into the ranks of the Continental Army and transformed into the artillery used by the Army of today.
Before the start of the Revolutionary War, there was only a small amount of militia artillery companies within the Colonies. These companies brought their expertise and guns to the Patriots upon the start of the Revolutionary War. Henry Knox, who was self-taught and eventually formed the American artillery branch, re-organized the companies into four regiments of Continental Artillery. At the onset of the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army had little to no artillery of their own, until May 1775, when Benedict Arnold joined forces with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys from Vermont to attack Fort Ticonderoga. The attack was small, surprising the British garrison while they slept. This …show more content…
The maximum range was 2,000 yards and effective range was 1,000 yards. The Continental Army now had the ability to manufacture their own cannons. Henry Knox insisted that the manufacturing of the cannons be in a centralized location in order to make sure the cannon’s dimensions consistently stayed the same during the production process. Springfield, Massachusetts became the location for the mass production of all the artillery; Henry Knox believed the British would not be able to overtake Springfield. At first, the cannons were duplicates from the British standard models, since they had already obtained them. Soon, John Muller published “A Treatise of Artillery”, which consisted of a variety of cannon blueprints. As a result, a few of his ideas soon reproduced and used to lead the assault on the