“Born at sea, baptized in blood, your fame shall never die. The 45th is one of the best if not actually the best division in the history of American arms.”
… Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
The tradition of excellence espoused by General Patton continues to this day at the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City. As Oklahoma’s only state-operated museum dedicated to military history, it collects, preserves and exhibits objects and equipment relevant to the state’s military heritage from its early forts and trails to the present day.
Readers of The Artilleryman will be pleased with the emphasis on artillery from entrance to exit. Of special interest is the Reaves Military Weapons Collection, which includes the “Mosby Cannon,” a rare and well-documented 2.25-inch bronze Confederate mountain rifle.
A visit to the 45th’s museum makes an excellent companion to a trip to the United States Army Field Artillery Museum at Fort Sill in nearby Lawton, Okla. And across the street from the 45th museum is the Union Soldier Cemetery in which more than 60 Civil War veterans are buried.
The first forts and trails in present-day Oklahoma were developed to protect Native Americans forcibly moved to the then unoccupied “Indian Territory.” Fort Gibson was established in the eastern part of the state in 1824, followed by forts Towson and Washita. The Santa Fe, Chisholm, and the Butterland overland trails carried cattle, the military, and the mail through Oklahoma. Each of the tribes appointed a police force to keep order in its territory; the units also operated as militia.
The Indian Territory played an important role in the American Civil War, as a buffer between Union forces in Kansas and Confederate forces in Texas. Both sides worked hard to develop agreements with the tribes. Several battles were fought in present-day Oklahoma, the largest being the Battle of Honey Springs.
Following the war, an effort began to move all Indian tribes into reservations in Oklahoma. Phil Sheridan, under orders from General William Sherman, traveled to the western part of the state to put down Cheyenne depredations, followed by Col. George Custer’s nighttime raid on the camp of Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle in 1868. Abandoned Civil War forts were re-occupied, and Fort Sill was established in 1869.
The Oklahoma Territorial Militia was organized in 1890, and then reorganized as a National Guard unit in 1895. Even before statehood, Oklahomans participated in the Spanish-American War in 1898, and policing the Mexican border in 1916. In World War I, Oklahoma National Guardsmen fought with the 36th, 42nd, and 90th Divisions in France.
The 45th Infantry Division was created following World War I under the authority of the National Defense Act of 1920. The division started organizing in 1923, with its members coming from the states of Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. The Oklahomans camped for the first time at Fort Sill in 1924. During the period between the division’s organization and World War II, the Oklahoma units trained one night weekly in armories located throughout the state and attended an annual two-week summer encampment at Fort Sill.
In September 1940, the 45th Infantry Division was ordered into federal service for one year to engage in training. By then, America was faced with World War II, and the division extended its training at other camps in the country. In June 1943, the division sailed for Algeria for further preparations and amphibious landing training.
The division witnessed extensive combat in the war, participating in the landings at Sicily, Salerno and Anzio, the capture of Rome, and a victorious march into Munich. The division logged 511 combat days on the line, taking 126,000 prisoners and suffering 28,000 casualties.
Following World War II, the division reverted to National Guard status, and became an all-Oklahoma organization. Once again, weekly armory training and annual encampments at Fort Sill became the routine for division members.
The 45th was one of four National Guard Divisions called to duty by President Truman in June 1950. The division moved to Camp Polk, Louisiana, for training before sailing for Hokkaido, Japan, in March 1951. The division then moved to Korea in December 1951, remaining there throughout the war. The division was eventually disbanded in 1969, restructuring into separate infantry, artillery, and support commands.
The 45th Infantry Division Museum was created by an Act of the Oklahoma State Legislature in 1965, and placed under the supervision of the Adjutant General of Oklahoma. In 1974 the Lincoln Park Armory, the present site of the museum, became available and was dedicated as the museum’s permanent home.
The armory was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and completed in 1937. Over the years, the armory housed several units of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, including the 45th Infantry Division Headquarters and Headquarters Company. Its last tenant was the Oklahoma National Guard Officer Candidate School.
The museum opened on Sept. 27, 1976. The original grounds of the museum consisted of the armory buildings on a small plot of 90,000 square feet. The museum campus has increased through a long-term lease with Oklahoma City for adjoining ground, giving the museum complex a total of 15 acres. The additional land allowed for a landscaped outdoor Thunderbird Military Park in which some 20 military vehicles, tanks aircraft and big guns are displayed.
The museum is operated by volunteers under the direction of a board of directors. State appropriations for the museum are extremely limited, so the museum operates mainly on the small profit generated by gift shop sales and on voluntary donations by visitors.
Rooms in the museum tell the story of the 45th’s different branches, including the infantry, aviation, chemical, armor, engineering and medical services. A special room illustrates the weapons, colors, crests, combat, and training of the 45th’s artillerymen. Another room is dedicated to Oklahoma’s Medal of Honor recipients. Bill Mauldin, a member of the 45th, and famous for his “Willie and Joe” cartoons, donated his personal collection of original artwork to the museum. The museum library is heralded as one of the finest collections of military books, maps and ephemera in the region.
During the museum’s formation, it acquired one of the foremost private collections of military weapons — that of Jordan B. Reaves. Reaves (1903-‘93) was born in Pauls Valley, Indian Territory, son of a Texas Baptist missionary preacher. He attended the local schools and served as principal of a two-room schoolhouse before he was old enough to vote. During World War II, Reaves served as a Chief Machinists Mate in the Navy Seabees. After the war, he entered the appliance business, rising through the executive ranks over the course of his career.
Reaves was a renowned gun collector and restorer, donating items to Oklahoma City’s Cowboy Hall of Fame and the 45th Infantry Division Museum. He co-founded the Stand Watie Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and was an early Civil War Round Table member. His honors included receipt of the Jefferson Davis Medal from the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ancient Order of St. Barbara.
If the Reaves Military Weapons Collection is the crown of the museum’s holdings, then the crown jewel is the Mosby Cannon, a rare and well-documented Confederate mountain rifle. According to artillery historian Wayne E. Stark, 20 of the bronze mountain rifles were cast at the Tredegar Foundry in Richmond, Va., from Dec. 20, 1861, to June 20, 1862. (One other Tredegar mountain rifle was made of wrought iron wrapped with wire.)
Stark says that the 20 rifles were made in fulfillment of an order dated Nov. 11, 1861, for 20 bronze 2.25-inch mountain rifle guns at $0.90 per pound.
He cites a letter Confederate Chief of Ordnance Josiah Gorgas wrote on Jan. 3, 1862, that “The Mountain Rifle is to have three grooves (Saw Tooth) Twist One Turn in 10ft. depth of Groove 5/100ths of an inch, Width of Grooves 1/10ths of an inch.”
The tube was 42 inches long, with a two-and-a-quarter-inch bore, and rifled after the Brooke sawtooth system. The right trunnion is stamped “TF” for Tredegar Foundry and on the left trunnion is 1862. Behind the vent “200” (pounds) is stamped.
Stark’s database of surviving Civil War cannon shows that in addition to the Mosby Cannon three others survive, two of them at the West Point Museum and one in private hands.
A museum brochure about the Mosby Cannon claims the mountain rifle was designed to compete with the U.S. 12-pdr. mountain howitzer, but with greater range and more accurate fire. The bore was kept small to conserve weight; perhaps too small, as the two-and-one-eighth inch shell was inadequate for major combat. Less is known about the carriage, but it is guessed that it was a modified version of the U.S. mountain howitzer’s prairie carriage, and hitched to a small limber pulled by a pair of horses.
Only a few of the guns ever saw action. It is supposed that most were melted down and recast into Napoleons at the request of Gen. Robert E. Lee in the spring of 1863. The gun on display at the 45th Infantry Division Museum was one of those few, and its combat history, capture, and final resting place in the Reaves collection make for an interesting tale.
In May 1863, one of the rifles and a limber were smuggled through Union lines on the Rappahannock River to John S. Mosby and his Partisan Rangers to use on their raid on a Union supply train on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Mosby assigned an ex-United States Regulars artilleryman, Lt. Sam Chapman, as gunner with George Tuberville, driver, and Privates Mountjoy and Beattie as gun crew.
Early in the morning of May 30, 1863, Mosby led a band of 40 men and the gun and crew to a point on the railroad near Catlett’s Station, Virginia, where they ambushed and wrecked a supply train of 11 cars.
Col. William D. Mann, commanding the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, heard the artillery firing and immediately went with a detachment of the Fifth New York Cavalry and the First Vermont Cavalry and a small detachment of the Seventh Michigan. The New Yorkers pursued Mosby’s band in a running fight for several miles while the remainder headed for the scene of the ambush. Mosby turned off the road and placed his cannon in a farm yard about two miles southwest of Greenwich Church, the only entry to his position being a fenced narrow lane.
As the Fifth New York swept up the lane, a blast of canister from Mosby’s mountain rifle killed three and wounded seven of the charging horsemen. The Federals continued to assault the position until the Southerners ran out of ammunition. The crew disregarded Mosby’s orders to abandon the gun and continued to resist the onslaught, despite the overwhelming odds.
During the ensuing hand-to-hand fight, Mountjoy was captured, Chapman was seriously wounded and captured, and Beattie and Tuberville escaped with the team of horses and limber. In Col. Mann’s words it was “an extremely hot affair for a small one” resulting in Union losses of four killed and 15 wounded, and Confederate losses of six killed and 20 wounded.
Later, the Fifth New York presented the captured “Mosby Cannon” to Gen. Julius Stahel, commander of the Cavalry Division, Department of Washington, who kept it at his field headquarters as a salute gun. After the war, the veterans of the Fifth New York formed Grand Army of the Republic Post 113, and petitioned their Congressman, Samuel S. Cox, to obtain the Mosby Canon as a trophy for their meeting hall.
Cox was able to arrange the purchase of the cannon from the Washington Navy Yard for its value as scrap metal. [Stark says he can’t confirm this part of the Mosby Cannon story. A postwar inventory of “miscellaneous guns” at Washington Navy Yard does not include a Confederate 2.25-inch bronze mountain rifle. The Confederate guns at the yard had been captured by the U.S. Navy.]
During its 30 years in the hands of Post 113, the cannon suffered the indignity of having two inches of the muzzle cut off. This happened in 1872 when the men of the post, no doubt meaning well, used the metal to cast an official key to the city for the visiting Grand Duke Alexis of Russia.
In 1890, faced with dwindling membership, Post 113 gave up their meeting hall and loaned the trophy cannon to F.W. Hofele, who owned a beer garden in upper New York City. For a decade, Hofele fired the gun twice daily as he raised and lowered the flag at his pub. Irritated neighbors complained and by 1900 New York City police forbade cannon salutes.
In 1901 the post sold the cannon to Maj. S.K. Williams of Boston, who paid $50 for the gun and supporting documents, including several letters and an affidavit from men who helped capture it.
In 1945 the gun was inherited by the late Lt. Col. Herman Warner Williams, a grandnephew of S.K. Williams. Williams, a fellow of the Company of Military Historians, eagerly displayed the gun at the company’s 1952 meeting. It was mounted on a civilian saluting carriage inherited from the GAR post, but unsuitable for military use. Having no place in his Washington, D.C., apartment to store the gun, Williams transferred the cannon to gun dealer Col. Leon “Red” Jackson of Dallas, Texas.
Jackson announced that the gun would be sold, but only to a “good Southern home.” As the grandson of two Confederate soldiers, Jordan B. Reaves qualified, and he purchased the cannon and related papers in 1960. He remounted the rare piece on a modified replica prairie carriage.
Reaves completed the circle of the gun’s travels by returning to Northern Virginia a century after the battle to try and locate the exact spot where Mosby fought and lost his artillery piece. In Warrenton, Reaves met Charles N. Stone, a Farquier County official, whose father as a small boy witnessed the raid on the train.
Stone took Reaves to the site of the raid, traversed Mosby’s retreat to Greenwich Church, and finally returned to a graveyard where one of Mosby’s dead raiders still lay.
In addition to the Mosby Cannon, the Reaves collection includes a Coehorn mortar, Gatling gun, and a wide variety of firearms, sidearms, uniforms and accoutrements from the Revolutionary War through the modern era.
The museum and military park are open free Tuesday through Friday, from 9 to 4:15; Saturdays from 10 to 4:15; and Sundays from 1 to 4:15. The park is easily accessible from both I-44 and I-35 in northeast Oklahoma City.
Additional information is available by contacting the museum at: 2145 NE 36th St., Oklahoma City, OK 73111; (405) 424-5313; www.45thdivisionmuseum.com or e-mail at museum45@aol.com.
For their assistance with this article I thank Mike Gonzales, curator, 45th Infantry Division Museum, who kindly answered questions during my visit; Tom Isbill for taking the photographs; and my brother Andrew Schmidt for coordinating photography arrangements.
(About the Author: Jim Schmidt is a research and development chemist for a major pharmaceutical company near Chicago. He is a member of the McHenry County Civil War Round Table and The Society of Civil War Surgeons. He writes the “Medical Department” column in The Civil War News.)