The Woodruff Gun
Annotations to the Margreiter article.
Excerpts from Some Responses to Margreiter’s Letters Asking for Information about Woodruff Guns
Some of the replies received by John Margreiter to his inquiries about Woodruff guns.
9 August, 1965
My dear Dr. Margreiter:
I never even heard of such a gun, and isn’t that awful?…
G. B. JARRETT
Department of the Army
U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland
13 July 1976
Dear Dr. Margreiter:
I have just come across an undated paper napkin on which you have written a request for information on the 2-pounder steel skirmish guns of the 96th Pennsylvania….
RICHARD J. SOMMERS, Ph.D.
Archivist-Historian
Department of the Army
U.S. Army Military History Research Collection
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania
The gun in a wartime photograph of the 96th Pennsylvania is not a Woodruff gun, according to a historian at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, MA.
Aug. 26, ’65
Dear Dr. Margreiter:
…Odd that you should be asking me about the Woodruff gun. I am in search of information on this elusive piece, probably with more justification than you, for a friend and I are co-authoring a book on C-W field artillery, and this is one of the pieces we know about, but can’t track down in any satisfactory manner….
…The Woodruff comes in the same category as the Ellsworth guns, the Billinghurst-Requa battery guns and the Sawyers, as much the lesser-known C W pieces, that saw little service, and serve chiefly as stumbling blocks to idiots like me who try to write about them!!…
James C. Hazlett, M.D.
Co-author, Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War.
17 Mar 68
Dear Mr. Margreiter,
…DuBose sent me a copy of your letter. I did not reply as I had absolutely nothing to add, you know more about the Woodruff gun than I do….I have discussed this matter with Jim Hazlett and “Ned” Julian and about all the three of us know is that they existed….
Sydney C. Kerksis
The Phoenix Press
Military Publications
Woodruffs at West Point Museum. Photo from Robert W. Frisch, Curator, in the Margreiter Collection at the Library of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.
8 June 1972
Dear Dr. Margreiter:
In reply to your letter of 11 May 1972,
I regret to say that you already have more information on Woodruff guns than we….
ROBERT W. FISCH
Museum Curator
West Point Museum
30 May 1971
Dear John:
…The data on the Woodruff couldn’t be more welcomed. I had no idea so much was available, yet entirely unknown to weapons enthusiasts such as Jim Hazlett, [Harold] Peterson, [G. B.] Jarrett et. al. You have done a spectacular job and I certainly congratulate you….
…My files are virtually bare when it comes to the Woodruff….
Warren Ripley
Author, Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War.
All excerpts from the Margreiter Collection at the Library of the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.
