Louis de Tousard

Major Louis de Tousard was a French artillerist who served in the Continental Army under La Fayette. Tousard wrote two very influential books: one was a proposal for a school for officers which became the blueprint for West Point, and the other was a manual for artillery officers which became standard in the young army.

Influence on armory and manufacturing

The most important feature of his influence on the army was that he taught the ideas of Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, the man who originated the idea of interchangeable parts for guns. The War Department then set up the armories at Springfield and Harpers Ferry, which then set out to perfect the idea. Despite the claims of Eli Whitney, who failed to deliver on his original 1789 contract until 1809 and who never achieved interchangeabiltity, the American system of manufacturing was not perfected until inside contractor Captain John H. Hall realized it with the M1819 Hall rifle.

David A. Hounshell says in "From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932", "The importance of Tousard's book [on artillery] , as well as his informal teaching of officers in the Corps in the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, cannot be overemphasized [...] Thomas Jefferson's enthusiasm for Honoré Blanc's experiments with the manufacture of interchangeable musket parts and the influence on the American military of the rationalism of General Gribeauval and his followers firmly established the intellectual and institutional basis for the rise of the American system of arms production. The pure rationalism of 'system and uniformity' provided an adequate incentive for the pursuit of this goal. The United States War Department soon found the idea of interchangeability irresistible, and through its own armories and through private arms contracts it encouraged and supported attempts to achieve this end. Eventually the War Department demanded interchangeability. Ordnance officers elevated the idea of interchangeability to an ideal and helped to transform it into a reality."

Other military contributions

In addition to writing the proposal for West Point, Major de Tousard also designed Fort Adams.

References

Hounshell, David A. "From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States". Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8018-3158-X