ABSTRACT
This account describing the innovations in black powder introduced by the American ordnance officer T.J. Rodman was in a Report upon the Military Affairs of the United States. The report, marked ‘confidential’ on its cover, was written by two British Army officers sent to observe military developments as deployed in the American Civil War.2 This was not a novel practice, and Great Britain was by no alone in this activity. The Russians had sent over a military mission, which brought back much the same information about developments of black powder, particularly perforated cake powder. The result was the large-scale manufacture of what became known as Russian prismatic powder, adopted, in turn, by the Germans for all heavy rifled ordnance.3
