Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/115



HE First Maryland artillery was organized at Richmond, Va., in July, 1861, with Richard Snowden Andrews as captain, William F. Dement first-lieutenant, and Charles Snowden Couter second-lieutenant. The captain, Andrews, was the son of Colonel Andrews of the United States army and had peculiar qualifications for the profession of arms. He had been born and reared in the military and impressed with the traditions of the "Old Army," which for deep convictions of duty, devotion to ideals of high chivalry, purity of motive, entire unselfishness, patriotism, valor and genius for war has never been excelled by any army that ever marched under any flag. Snowden Andrews was the ideal of a young gentleman formed by such influences intellectual, well-informed on army matters, firm, persistent, indefatigable. No man went into service better equipped on either side. Believing himself better qualified for the scientific service of the artillery, he left his home and young wife in Bath, with the deliberate purpose of creating a battery, of which he intended to be commander. He procured from the department of war in Washington drawings of the most approved models of guns for the army. At Richmond he recruited his battery with indomitable energy. He selected his assistants, his lieutenants, with unerring judgment, for no better or braver men ever directed a gun than Dement and Couter. He submitted his drawings to the Confederate war department, secured its official endorsement, and by authority had the ordnance manufactured at the