Excerpt from Military Commission to Europe, in 1855 and 1856: Report of Major Alfred Mordecai, of the Ordnance Department Sm: I have the honor to present herewith a report of notes and observations on certain mili tary subjects, made during my visit to Europe, as a member of a military commission sent out in April, 1855, under the orders of the Hon. Jefferson Davis, your immediate predecessor in the War Department. The special reports of the commission, from time to time, show the course pursued in our journey, and the causes which prevented us from proceeding, as we wished to do, directly to the seat of war in the East. Those reports also show the courteous reception which we met with in most of the countries that we visited, and the facilities extended to us for accomplishing the object of our mission. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

From the musket to the M-16, rifles have played a major role in battle—sometimes tilting the scales in a pivotal moment of war. Yet all too often, poor decisions and ill-conceived "innovations" resulted in putting inappropriate weapons into ill-trained hands, with disastrous consequences. Ranging primarily from the late 18th century to the present, this richly illustrated volume tells the fascinating, sometimes problematic, history of rifled weapons and ammunition for military use. Battle to battle, readers will see how faster-loading, more accurate rifles changed the battlefield. Readers will also encounter many instances where decisionmakers chose to issue rifles ill-suited for the task at hand when better options were available. Author David Westwood has handled every weapon he describes, from muskets to breechloaders, from repeaters and bolt-action rifles to semiautomatics and self-loaders. His exhaustive research reveals new insights into both the successes and failures of rifled weapons. The result is a fresh look at a common weapon's most uncommon story.