Crozier,_William

Crozier, William (1855- ), American artillerist and inventor, born at Carrollton, Carroll county, Ohio, on the 19th of February 1855, was the son of Robert Crozier (1827-1895), chief justice of Kansas in 1863-1866, and a United States senator from that state from December 1873 to February 1874. He graduated at West Point in 1876, was appointed a 2nd lieutenant in the 4th Artillery, and served on the Western frontier for three years against the Sioux and Bannock Indians. From 1879 to 1884 he was instructor in mathematics at West Point, and was superintendent of the Watertown (Massachusetts) Arsenal from 1884 to 1887. In 1888 he was sent by the war department to study recent developments in artillery in Europe, and upon his return he was placed in full charge of the construction of gun carriages for the army, and with General Adelbert R. Buffington (1837- ), the chief of ordnance, he invented the Buffington-Crozier disappearing gun carriage (1896). He also invented a wire-wound gun, and perfected many appliances connected with heavy and field ordnance. In 1890 he attained the rank of captain. During the Spanish-American War he was inspector-general for the Atlantic and Gulf coast defences. In 1899 he was one of the American delegates to the Peace Conference at the Hague. He later served in the Philippine Islands on the staffs of Generals John C. Bates and Theodore Schwan, and in 1900 was chief of ordnance on the staff of General A. R. Chaffee during the Pekin Relief Expedition. In November 1901 he was appointed brigadier-general and succeeded General Buffington as chief of ordnance of the United States army. His Notes on the Construction of Ordnance, published by the war department, are used as text-books in the schools for officers, and he is also the author of other important publications on military subjects.

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