Nine years ago, I did my first State of the Union History blog post on George Washington and the creation of a well-regulated Militia. Washington wrote, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace". Congress passed the Militia Acts of 1792 and followed up with additional acts in 1794 to establish national arsenals to arm soldiers with domestically produced weapons. By the end of the War of 1812, there were five Army arsenals in operation, each under the command of the Ordnance Department. In 1812, land west of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river was newly explored frontier land with few settlers. Hardly a place where an Army arsenal was needed. Much changed by 1837. America was expanding west, and the U.S. had their eyes on Texas and soon would want California and all of Oregon. Nine years before America declared war on Mexico, President Martin Van Buren urged Congress to establish "a manufactory of small arms west of the Alleghany Mountains".
Perhaps, Van Buren had his eyes on the western frontier of Missouri. Several months before Van Buren took office, his predecessor Andrew Jackson signed a bill authorizing construction of an arsenal in Missouri. In fact, the federal government had just recently in June of 1837 purchased 10 acres of land for this purpose. In Van Buren's first State of the Union address, he urged congress to create a "national foundry for cannon" and a "small arms west of the Alleghany Mountains"
The creation of a national foundry for cannon, to be common to the service of the Army and Navy of the United States, has been heretofore recommended, and appears to be required in order to place our ordnance on an equal footing with that of other countries and to enable that branch of the service to control the prices of those articles and graduate the supplies to the wants of the Government, as well as to regulate their quality and insure their uniformity. The same reasons induce me to recommend the erection of a manufactory of gunpowder, to be under the direction of the Ordnance Office. The establishment of a manufactory of small arms west of the Alleghany Mountains, upon the plan proposed by the Secretary of War, will contribute to extend throughout that country the improvements which exist in establishments of a similar description in the Atlantic States, and tend to a much more economical distribution of the armament required in the western portion of our Union.
On September 30, 1841, the "Liberty" arsenal for the construction of arms was completed. Twenty years later the federal arsenal was captured by a group of Southern sympathizers who captured more than 1,000 muskets. It has been called the "Fort Sumter of Missouri.
No comments:
Post a Comment