"Military Commission to Europe" – Report on the Crimean War by Major Alfred Mordecai – Washington, 1861

"Military Commission to Europe" – Report on the Crimean War by Major Alfred Mordecai – Washington, 1861
Military Commission to Europe in 1855 and 1856, a report by Alfred Mordecai from the Ordnance Department. Printed by George W. Bowman, Washington, 1861. English.
A detailed military report on the fighting nations in the Crimean War (1853-1856) prepared while Alfred Mordecai travelled through the battlefields of Crimea. The report surveys the military system of each of the nations, the military equipment and arms used by each of the armies and the manner in which the army operated them in the battlefield. The report ends with 21 plates of detailed technical drawings of various weapons, and plans of the military arsenal in Vienna.
Alfred Mordecai was a high-ranking Jewish military officer in the Ordnance Department of the United States Army. He was the commander of the central arsenal of the US Army in Washington and one of the founders of the systematic scientific development of arms and munitions in the US Army. Being a native of North Carolina, one of the Confederate States, he retired from the army when the Civil War broke out.
Bound (as originally published) with:
Rifled Infantry Arms, a Brief Description of the Modern System of Small Arms, as Adopted by the Various European Armies, by J. [ulius] Schön - Dresden, 1855. English. A composition concerning the arms of the European armies, with thirteen illustrated folding plates.
vii, 176 pp, 21 plates; [3], 180-232 pp, 13 plates, 29 cm. Good condition. Some staining and tears. Creases at margins of folding plates. Binding damaged and partly restored (tears at corners and spine). New endpapers.
Not in the collection of the National Library of Israel.