CHAPTER 12 Fremont Arms the Western Army

If General Ripley had set out to deliberately embarrass a fellow officer who had reached a zenith in his career, he could not have done it better than by selling the Hall carbines in New York for $3.50. General John Charles Fremont, commander of the Department of the West at St. Louis, the romantically labeled Pathfinder, who had numerous times crossed the wastes of the Great American Desert in his travels, who had a guiding hand in the short-lived California Bear Republic of gold rush days, was stopped as short in his career that might have led (as Grant’s did) to the White House, as if he had run into a brick wall. What did it was Fremont’s purchase at $22 each of 5,000 Hall carbines obsoleted by order of General Ripley and sold out of Governor’s Island (in the midst of a frantic scramble for arms) for only $3.50 each.
That the guns were new, that they were rifled at an additional charge of only a dollar, and then sold to Fremont, served merely to aggravate the situation. Civil War students concerned with personalities and office conflicts may later sort out the problems which beset Fremont when he took command in St. Louis, and how his solutions contributed to his political downfall as well as the side-tracking of a formerly brilliant military career. We are here concerned only with the arms and tactics, and their relation to his status as major defendant in a Senatorial inquisition into the Conduct of the War and its administrative abuses in organizing and equipping the Western Department.

Fremont’s First Purchases

This hot potato which Fremont was handed did not come complete with fork and butter to make it palatable; in other words, he had to create literally from nothing an army and its equipment. Fremont left his old command in California for Europe on January 1,
1861, to obtain supplies. He puchased several batteries of cannon together with some muskets and 25 pistols, believed to have been the Lefaucheux Model 1853 12mm pinfire revolver, sometimes erroneously called in the United States service, the FrenchTranter.
Upon his return to New York he was beset by the agents of many arms makers and speculators, and in one instance at least was shown the light and elegant .58 Chasseurs de Vincennes pattern rifle and when he ordered the guns (at a high price) a cheaper article was fraudulently substituted by the contractor. The substitution was caught up by Holt and Owen but the incident unfortunately reflected little credit on Fremont though it was done without his knowledge or consent. The situation in St. Louis had become desperate. An order for 5,000 arms upon the St. Louis arsenal revealed that the storerooms were bare:

TELEGRAM, QUINCY, ILL., JULY 17, 1861 MAJOR GENERAL FREMONT, NEW YORK:
I am ordered to hold the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. I have three regiments posted along the road, in communication at the west with Iowa troops, for detached service and breaking up camps of rebels. I need better arms than the smooth musket. I have one regiment wholly unarmed in camp here, and can get no arms in St. Louis or Springfield. Can you send me Minies and ammunition?
S. A. HURLBUT, BRIGADIER GENERAL

TELEGRAM, CHICAGO, JULY 17, 1861 MAJOR GENERAL FREMONT, U.S.A., NEW YORK We need specially, to fit out one or two regiments of cavalry, sabres and revolvers. There are absolutely none in this part of the country.
JOHN POPE, BRIGADIER GENERAL

The call was repeated many times over, and in a flurry of last minute gun buying and partial commitments to contracts, Fremont left New York to assume command in St. Louis. The emergency was severe; the agent of Adams Express cleared the tracks for arms for Fremont by offering to bring them in from New York or Washington Arsenal by fast passenger train. General Nathaniel Lyon (on 10 August 1861 killed in the fighting between Rolla and Springfield, Missouri) urgently needed 5,000 muskets for his men. Given no help by Ripley, who had no rifles to issue, Fremont
with the individual. determination that had marked his life as an officer took the direct route and bought the guns in the open market. From John Hoey, who in association with Hedden was to sell the United States and particularly General Ripley a large number of arms, Fremont ordered 200 Enfield rifles at $26.50. These were delivered—100 on August 31 and 100 on September 4. With these were 2,180 smoothbore Austrian muskets, new, brown and bright, as Hoey billed them, at $10 each. As John Hoey is listed as having delivered 1,250 cavalry sabers at $8 each probably at the same time, it is assumed these were also for Fremont, in response to General Pope’s urgent plea. Some of these same sabers were put to good use by Major Zagonyi, commander of the fabled and apparently much-maligned Fremont Hussars, the general’s bodyguard regiment. These arms went out via Adams Express to Captain F. D. Callender at the St. Louis Arsenal, who receipted for them; and the accounts, briefly held up, were ultimately paid.

The Austrian Muskets

Austrian muskets figured largely in Fremont’s command. And as is so often the case, when later tempered judgment can look back at the actions of highly placed executives far from appeal to superiors, Fremont in his purchases of arms can be cleared of charges of incompetence. His acceptance of some 25,000 Austrian muskets, later loudly condemned by field commanders, was a practical move in an emergency. Though he has been criticized for the amount of his expenditures in many ways, including some strong complaints about field fortifications and the alleged dandy dress of his body-guard, Major Charles Zagonyi’s Fremont Hussars, his issue of Austrian guns gave the Army in the West weapons at the time they had none.
The New York import firm, Kruse, Drexel and Schmidt, had on hand in 1861 13,000 new and 12,000 used Austrian Consol-Augustin muskets priced at about $7 each. These were pattern 1841 smoothbores, later sold by Bannerman as 10720. Austrian Army TubeLock Musket. They had three bands, the front one with the characteristic tube or pipe for ramrod; 43-inch barrels and of .70 caliber, accepting the new .69 U. S. minie bullet. Bayonets were retained by a spring hook below the barrel. The muskets had been in use a long time in the Austrian army; were obsoleted on adopting the Lorenz rifle 1854.
Fremont and his aide, Colonel I. C. Woods, met the importers in New York and examined samples of these muskets. At first Fremont rejected the idea of buying them, as he had an order from Washington for 7,000 stand of Government-owned arms. Thinking there would be plenty of better small-caliber cap-lock rifle muskets available, the general was miffed when the order had been countermanded. He got Major Hagner to help him, and endeavored to arrange for arms and equipment for a corps of 23,000 men. Fremont and Woods eventually went with the Army to Springfield, then St. Louis, to take up duties. After the Battle of Bull Run, the arms market took a sudden upturn in activity. Fremont’s hopes to get better guns failed.
After General Fremont had arrived in St. Louis, and the Government had issued orders to have all the arms procurable forwarded from New York to Washington, it became impossible to get other arms, Colonel Woods later told the Committee on the Conduct of the War (Part 3, page 198). These Austrian arms were then bought, he continued, but upon condition the importers should manufacture, in New York, this percussion primer (which was used on them instead of a percussion cap), in sufficient quantities to answer the purpose for these arms. And as quite a large portion of the Army of the West were foreign soldiers, and a great many of the officers were familiar with the arm, and a great many of the soldiers had before used it, although it took one more motion to prime it than it did to put the cap on our muskets [closing down the detonating pin cover], still, as it took the same bullet—the Minie bullet—that our muskets did, it was decided that it was absolutely necessary to have them.
They planned to issue such arms to key defensive personnel, such as bridge guards, who could count on other support if their primers were expended. The urgent need for guns was much like that in England in 1940, after retreat from Dunkirk, when any revolver, so long as it had five good shells, was enough to arm a Home Guardsman for airport defense.
The Austrian muskets arrived at St. Louis but the primers were not with them, having been shipped separately. Two boxes of primers were sent out first, Fremont reported to the Committee, but, in consequence of careless handling, they exploded somewhere near Pittsburg, and killed some two or three men, and that caused some delay. When Colonel Albert of Fremont’s staff, who had been in the Austrian Army, saw his old friend the Consol musket, he declared it was a good weapon. Said Fremont, I think he used a stronger expression than that, but I will stop with that. The guns were set aside in two lots, 15,000 for issue as tube-locks, and 10,000 to be rifled and altered in the breech to percussion.
Captain Callender, in charge of the St. Louis Arsenal and Fremont’s ordnance officer, took out the breech pins of a couple and set them up on his rifling machine. Though he was urgently busy cutting grooves in several thousand Springfield muskets already on hand, he wanted to see how they looked when rifled.
Callender told Fremont’s aide, Colonel Wood, that the breech of the Austrian musket was thicker than the Springfield muskets; and rifled better than the United States ones. The St. Louis rifling machine being in use, one Austrian musket was sent to Cincinnati and one to Philadelphia to be altered to percussion, to see which shop did the best work (Kittredge in Cincinnati, Jenks in Philadelphia, or Krider?). On the return of the samples, Fremont preferred the Philadelphia alteration ($5) but Callender recommended the Austrian muskets be sent to Cincinnati for altering
and rilling. The cost was less—$4.50. Some were shipped out, others issued immediately to regiments of home guards, who later exchanged their smoothbore Consols for rifled percussion ones.
One regiment, which was about 15 miles out from Sedalia on the road to Springfield, learning that a carload of these altered arms had arrived, marched in to get these arms, and marched back again the same day, said Colonel Wood. When Callender had finished rifling the several thousand Springfield muskets on hand— his machine had a capacity of 60 per day—he finished up the Austrian guns. Wood declared that, We looked upon the purchase even at first as being a very excellent one; and when it was found that they could be altered and made a very good weapon, it was looked upon as a very economical purchase in every point of view . . . they cost but about $11.50 each when ready to be put finally into the hands of our soldiers.
Captain Chauncy McKeever (later designer of the McKeever cartridge box used during the SpanishAmerican War) was an officer of the Regular Army, Adjutant General’s Department, stationed with Fremont. His comments on Austrian guns are somewhat less flattering. Acknowledging that the West was unprepared, he said: The fact is, at this time Lexington was attacked (by General Sterling Price, Missouri Confederate commander), there were scarcely any troops prepared to take the field. They were waiting for arms. I think some 10,000 Austrian muskets had been sent to Cincinnati to be altered and rifled. But I did not consider them a good weapon, even when improved. They did not seem to give satisfaction at all. Complaints were made that the locks were not good; that the guns would go off at half-cock; that the locks would break; that the hammers would break off. Yet McKeever was not at all condemnatory of Fremont as a person, nor of Callender operating under his directions. Callender, he said, certainly exerted himself to the utmost, and purchased wherever he could find weapons and whenever he could get the authority to do so. McKeever felt that rumors from the East that Fremont was to be replaced seriously impaired his authority in command, by inference contributing to some of the alleged abuses.
The newspapers, never more active than when there was no real news, made hay of these foreign gun purchases and issues. Fremont received a letter January 21, 1862, from one of his former staff officers still in St. Louis, Captain Hoskins. The captain reported: Apropos of the long stories concerning the Austrian muskets, &c., which were so freely circulated in the newspapers, it is a very curious commentary on their alleged want of value that I was last week ordered to go to Benton Barracks, on the suggestion of Colonel Callender, to prove some of those very muskets, which had been issued to the troops. I need not say to you that the trial was a very conclusive one, and the two regiments, armed with them, marched next day for Cairo. The men had heard enough against those armsto make them feel very unwilling to take them; but after the proving and trial, I judge they were very much better satisfied. Indeed, if it were not for these same despised weapons many of the regiments would have still remained unarmed; for the Department of Missouri has been much neglected in this respect, as well as the Department of the West, with a fair opportunity to solve the old task-work riddle of making bricks without straw.
Some of Fremont’s irregular cavalry units were equipped with Consol-converted Austrian carbines. These guns are of distinctive pattern, locks shaped like the Consol muskets and of .71 caliber, a short 14-inch barrel and stock held by one plain iron band. The iron trigger guard is formed at the rear tang into a sort of semi-pistol grip, while a cavalry sling bar is on the stock left side. Stock wood is often beech or other soft kind, not good walnut, and the guns are cheaply made in general finish though welcome emergency arms when Schuyler bought them. Six varieties of foreign percussion carbines were purchased totalling 10,051 guns for a price of $66,193.00, an average of $6.50 each. They were sold by Bannerman fifty years later as Rare relics. Only few now to be had. Guns are in perfect order. Price $3.50 each.

Dealings with Stevens and Eastman

Fremont’s Austrian guns did their duty for the North, but when Fremont received a wire from one Simon Stevens, his downfall was assured.

56 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, August 5, 1861J. C. FREMONT,
Major General Commanding, Cairo, Illinois Sir: I have five thousand Hall’s rifled cast-steel carbines, breech-loading, new, at twenty-two dollars, government standard, fifty-eight. Can I hear from you?
SIMON STEVENS

Fremont replied at once, on August 6, that he would take the whole 5,000 carbines. He instructed Stevens to see the Adams agent and send by express not fast freight, Fremont to pay the extra charges. He told Stevens to send ammunition, and devote yourself solely to that business today. Without regard for cost, Fremont was determined to save Missouri for the Union. Rather bitterly Fremont, in his deposition justifying his purchases before the Senate committee declared:
The labors of the investigating committee appear to have resulted in a single resolution, in which the purchase of certain arms by myself is made a prominent subject. With respect to the sale of these arms by the government I have nothing to say. They were new, and I am told were sold without being condemned. The contract price at which they were bought by the government was, I believe, $17.50. The price at which they are set down in the ordnance manual is $21. After they had been rifled and otherwise improved, I purchased them at $22. Taking into consideration the advance in price of arms caused by the war, I submit that the purchase is not deserving of special censure.

Fremont furor was kicked off by his purchase of 5,000 Hall carbines of North’s improved pattern. Price paid to New York speculator was much inflated over Government sale price but Fremont needed guns in St. Louis.

But history and Fremont’s peers all censured him, in spite of his honorable failure to defend himself by commenting on the sale of the arms by the Government. For the sale was concluded during that month of July when he was in New York frantically searching for arms to buy. It was set up in June by active assistance of General Ripley who seemed possessed somehow with an all-consuming desire to rid the United States of the liability of possessing these arms at any price. Yet the need was not, as sometimes dictates surplus sales, for the space in which they were stored. The buyer was permitted to leave the arms where stored, at Governors Island and at Frankford Arsenal, subject to his call or order. And the buyer was not Stevens, but a man-behind-the-scenes named Arthur M. Eastman, of Manchester, New Hampshire.
Stevens himself was a more obvious figure. He and Fremont had come together in New York and Fremont spoke to him concerning arms and forwarding them to him in St. Louis. When Fremont left for the West, Stevens knew Fremont would buy arms from him if he could offer them. He found the Hall carbines and put a price on them which, knowing the state of Fremont’s mind so far as arms purchases was concerned, he felt the general would pay. His telegram of August 5 was in his mind and in Fremont’s eyes a bona-fide offer to sell arms at a price which Fremont accepted and agreed to pay.
About August 18, because of his doing so much for Fremont in New York, he was appointed to a post on Fremont’s staff as a civilian forwarding agent, in New York, looking after Fremont’s purchases in Europe and in the East. This caused the Senate investigators and the Commissioners, Holt, Owen, and Hagner, to raise the question, was his purchase of the carbines and resale to Fremont not a definite breach of trust and all claims therefore against the United States invalid?
Collaborating in the financing of this lot were the youthful money man, J. P. Morgan, and a much more respected and well-established firm, the House of Ketchum, whose head, Morris Ketchum, was introduced to the notice of the Commissioners by no less a dignitary than John J. Cisco, Assistant Treasurer of the United States. Of Ketchum, Cisco said to Judge Holt:
"... The Government has had no more influential, efficient, and courageous supporter in this community than Morris Ketchum. In the hours of greatest gloom and public depression, he has been foremost in rallying capitalists to the support of the Treasury Department. His house . . . has by its energy and boldness in offering for large amounts done more to facilitate the negotiations of our loans and sustain the credit of the Government than any house in the country . .
Ketchum and Morgan has collaborated on the financing of the deal, but in a very indirect manner. Yet, as theirs was a security interest in the weapons in question, it was to Morgan that the job of directly submitting the claim fell, when Secretary Stanton suspended all contracts and asked for an accounting. Morgan’s claim was for the second half of the carbines:

The United States to J. P. Morgan, Dr.

ORDNANCE STORES

1861

August 7. 2,500    Hall’s carbines, at $22 ............$55,000

5.000    screwdrivers, at 25 cents ............1,250

5.000    wipers at 20 cents ......................1,000

500    spring vises, at 35 cents................175

500    bullet moulds, at 50 cents............250

125    packing boxes, at $4 ....................500

$58,175

The annexed named ordnance stores have been received in good order.

F. D. CALLENDER

Captain of Ordnance, United States Army

When the full story came out it did not do credit to Ripley or to the disorganized state of the Ordnance Office in the spring of 1861. Basis for the sale was found in an order of Colonel Craig’s dated August 25, 1857, authorizing officers to inspect ordnance materiel and classify any as unserviceable that might be found obsolete, damaged, etc. Craig was strict only about the muskets converted to percussion from flint; these he wanted as a War reserve; the miscellany could be sold off, including the various odd patterns of breechloaders and semi-experimental field trial arms bought under direction of Jeff Davis.

Hall Carbines

The reports of arms on hand gathered dust for four years, until A. M. Eastman observed there were listed

All Hall guns, rifles or carbines, were rising-chamber breechloaders having either flint cock or percussion hammer mounted in receiver behind chamber. Though not gastight, they were used in U.S. Army from 1817 to 1865.

a quantity of the Hall’s carbines. These particular guns were mostly new, the Hall-North Model 1843, having North’s improved side lever to open the breechblock. With 21-inch round steel-drilled barrels, these .52 caliber carbines were smoothbore. All metal was finished lacquer brown. A sling bar with a ring sliding on it was attached to the left side of the stock, to the rear band, and to the frame. The front band was held by a stud band spring. These guns had been made in 1849-52, and though of nonstandard pattern (with the emphasis more and more to be on metallic cartridge carbines), they leaked no more fire at the breech than did old Sharps and other guns, and in the emergency were certainly serviceable for special issue. But Eastman, up in Manchester, New Hampshire, seemed to sense this before General Ripley, his desk piled high with requisitions for arms.
On May 28 Eastman, who had come to Washington to make this deal, wrote to Ripley a formal offer to buy. He said: We find reported of Hall’s carbines 5,184, and damaged, 1,240 additional ... I now propose to purchase the entire lot at three dollars each for those entirely in good order, and in proportion for the damaged, upon examination . . . Eastman himself set a 90-day limit on the deal, cash on delivery, and stated he wanted the entire lot because it would affect the manner in which he would prepare our works to remodel and alter them . . . The inference is, that he represented manufacturing interests in Manchester, possibly Amoskeag, though his name does not appear in later Amoskeag contracts and papers. Ripley refused Eastman’s price of $3, though similar Hall carbines had been sold for $1 to $2 in small sales prior to the war. He considered the carbines worth $3.50 each, thinking of the past sale prices and calculating what, in his eyes, was a fair appreciation in
view of the demand. That he was all out of proportion in his estimates was not to be made clear until later.
Cameron approved the price and ordered all sold that could be taken; Eastman asked for an order on Colonel R. H. K. Whiteley of New York Arsenal. He wanted the order to permit partial delivery in lots of
1,000 with payment on delivery, plus an additional $500 deposit as Eastman’s guarantee that the whole lot would be taken away within 90 days.
This arrangement seemed okay and on August 7, Eastman received from Whiteley 4,996 Hall carbines, 4,996 screwdrivers, 4,996 wipers, 499 spring vises, 499 bullet moulds, and 250 packing boxes, all for $3.50 each. Later J. P. Morgan was to charge the United States $4 for the very same chests, containing 20 carbines each and relidded after working on the guns and repacking them.
Between Eastman’s visit to Washington in June and his receiving of the whole number of 5,000 guns that he wanted to purchase on 7 August, a new figure had been introduced, Simon Stevens. On 1 August Stevens lent Eastman $20,000 to buy the guns, receiving in return an option for 20 days to in turn buy the guns from Eastman for Stevens’ own account. Both knew what a windfall Eastman had walked in to by means, of normal procedure in the Ordnance Office.
Probably Stevens beat down Eastman’s asking price by referring to the new cost of the guns as but $17.50; Eastman at the time may have assumed Stevens would make but a couple of dollars on each gun, though he had himself cleared $9.50 profit, or about $50,000 on a $20,000 investment. Stevens in turn had obtained funds from J. P. Morgan, advances to pay for rifling and cleaning up the carbines, the high cartage bill on hundreds of cases of carbines, and incidental expenses including commissions on money and services as

trustee in handling all the money details of the transaction.
When Fremont told Stevens to get to work on the deal at once, he did not delay; a contract was made August 10, 1861 with W. W. Marston to rifle the guns and enlarge the chambers, to allow the guns to take the .58 musket cartridge. These were done at his shop at 22d Street and Second Avenue and the work went quickly, for it was private business and every day delayed meant a dollar lost. One additional contract was made with Harrison Tweed of the Taunton Locomotive Works to bore out and rifle 1,000 of the guns, which was done for $777.00. The rest of the
5,000 were done by Marston. The initial price was $1—negotiations dropped the balance charges to $0.75.
Fremont wired asking what the delay was, and Stevens told him they were rifling and altering to .58. Fremont answered, You have done right; go on with the rifling, use despatch, hurry up. On August 23 the first 500 guns went out to St. Louis, arriving in two days; 1,500 guns went in the second lot shipped
26 August, and the last 500 by the end of the month. Captain Callender delayed slightly in getting the payment back to Stevens but finally a check on the assistant treasurer at New York was sent out to Morgan, the actual stake holder, by Adams Express, dated (as Stevens recalled) September 10. The second 2,500 meanwhile had been processed through the rifling and were on their way west, before the 15th of September. By September 24 all the 5,000 remodeled Hall carbines had been issued to troops.
In the early period of the war, said Lieutenant
H. R. Buffington, assisting Captain Callender at St. Louis, officers complained of these arms, but for many months they are only too willing to use them, as no others have been and apparently cannot be supplied (May 15, 1862); but the impression is, among those who know and those who do not know, that this arm is very inferior to Sharps’ carbine.
Buffington gave Holt and Owen details of the Halls which had been turned in for repair, over 10 per cent of them having been damaged in the field since issue. Of 152 then on hand for repair, 18 stocks were broken from the blast of gas at the breech, and two had barrels broken off about IV2 inches from the muzzle. The parts supplied for repair have been principally tumbler and leaf-spring screws and hammers. The hammer is easily broken off the Hall from its high-up exposed position; the leaf spring screws are easily lost by careless reassembly. It is possible to get one’s screwdriver into a position of forcing the screw into place and then it suddenly slips and the screw flies off and is lost, because of being somewhat under tension. But the men of Fremont’s and Pope’s cavalry were glad to have these guns, in spite of their seeming defects.
In the United States service, as flintlock and later percussion, the Hall system had been issue since 1817. Until Craig, it had been a sort of favorite of the Ordnance Department, since Colonel George Bom ford, for so many years Chief of Ordnance, was said (by Christopher Colt, Sam Colt’s father) to have an interest in the Hall patent. The Hall, far from being a junky sort of outmoded piece of scrap, was an entirely serviceable weapon fabricated and considered as Government issue as late as 1851. To justify the prices and the merits of the arms in question as fit for service and worth the sums of the claims, Ketchum fronted for Morgan and submitted depositions from James North and Edward Savage, who had made the guns, and from Marston and also Austin Baldwin, former military storekeeper at Middletown, Connecticut, who had originally received the arms in question from North. These depositions contain first-hand notes of general interest to the arms student, though the events they mention are out of time in the Civil War era; nevertheless they are of merit and two are reproduced in full:

NEW YORK, May 2, 1862

STATE OF NEW YORK, City of New York, ss:

William W. Marston, of the city of New York, manufacturer of firearms, doing business corner 21st Street and 2nd Avenue, in said city, being duly sworn according to law, deposes and says: That he is in the fortieth year of his age; that he has been engaged on his own account in the business of manufacturing firearms for the last fifteen years, and that for the last twelve years has had constantly in his employ upwards of fifty men, sometimes upwards of two hundred and fifty, when business pressed; that he is familiar with the manufacture of firearms generally, particularly with pistols, carbines, rifles and muskets; that he is well acquainted with the carbines known as Hall’s carbines, manufactured at Middletown, Connecticut; that early in August,    1861, Mr. Simon    Stevens called
on this affiant at his factory    and    proposed to    contract    with
this affiant for the rifling and chambering of 5,000 Hall’s carbines, steel barrels new; that he made a contract with Mr. Stevens to rifle and chamber the breech of 4,000 carbines, .58 bore, in a good and workmanlike manner; that he received the first thousand carbines, in pursuance of this agreement from J. P. Morgan, on    the    10th day of    August,    1861,
the second thousand on the    21st    day of August, the    third
thousand on the 24th day of August, and the fourth thousand on the 29th day of August, 1861; that he executed the contract faithfully to the best of his ability, and in a good and workmanlike manner, and delivered them to the Adams’ Express, upon the order of J. P. Morgan, as rapidly as possible; he finished and delivered the last lot to the Adams’ Express on the — day of September, 1861; these four thousand carbines were all new, were of good material and workmanship; they all had upon them the inspector stamps of an ordnance officer and the stamp of the manufacturer, as well as the year in which they were made; they all had side levers with which to raise the breech; that, with the alterations referred to as made by affiant, he considers them a very good and effective weapon for military purposes.
This affiant has been engaged in the manufacture of firearms for over twenty-five years last past, and is now manufacturing arms for the United States Government; that he personally inspected the work he did upon these Hall’s carbines, and superintended their packing for shipment.
Some time in November this affiant was applied to by Major P. V. Hagner, United States Army, to assist in the inspection of foreign arms; that this affiant did comply with the request of Major Hagner, and did inspect about sixty thousand arms imported from Europe. The demand for firearms late in luly and August, 1861, was greatly enhanced, and the prices were increased very much over the prices in peace times.
This lot of Hall’s carbines being new, improved, and effective, as described above, were, in the opinion of this affiant, well worth in the month of August, 1861, about $22; that rifles of the Enfield pattern then readily sold at about from $28 to $30. The same kind of rifles could have been purchased since at from $17 to $20 each.

W. W. MARSTON

The second statement, while signed and prepared by only Edward Savage, was read and concurred in by an endorsement by James North. Curious to note is Savage’s statement that only 250 Hall-system rifles were made at the North works in Middletown, though Gluckman records a contract of July, 1829, to North for 1,200 rifles and treats of them as if all were delivered. Savage, with some cause to know, under oath in a deposition before Holt and Owen, in which the background of the Hall carbine technically as well as financially was important, declared otherwise.

STATE OF CONNECTICUT

City of Middletown, County of Middlesex, ss:

Edward Savage, of the town of Cromwell, County and State aforesaid, late of the firm of North & Savage, contractors with the government of the United States for the manufacture of the celebrated Hall’s carbines, and now one of the proprietors of the Savage Revolving Fire-arms Company, located in the city of Middletown aforesaid, being duly sworn, deposes and says: That he is in the sixtieth year of his age; that he has been engaged in the manufacturing of firearms for the last twenty five years; that he was the successor to his father’s business, who was the associate of Colonel Simeon North, since deceased, who was the pioneer of government contractors for firearms.This deponent is informed and believes that Colonel Simeon North commenced manufacturing firearms for the United States Government in the year 1799, in the town of Berlin, State aforesaid; that in the year 1811 or thereabouts, said Simeon North removed his works to the town of Middletown aforesaid, at the request of the Secretary of War, and the Government made large advances to Mr. North to enable him to remove to Middletown and to increase largely the capacity of his works, and at the same time gave him an order for about twenty thousand pistols. It was at this time that Colonel North introduced the system of making all the parts so they would change and interchange with each other with perfect accuracy; for this he was allowed a bonus of $1 per pistol. Subsequently, additional orders of many thousands were received and executed by Colonel North, who associated with him from about 1811 the father of this affiant, Josiah Savage. The said Josiah Savage died in 1831, and, after the settlement of his estate, this affiant, with Colonel Simeon North, was associated with James North, the son of Simeon aforesaid, and continued the manufacture of firearms. About the year 1829 or 1830 Hall’s rifles and carbines were introduced into the United States service. The house of Colonel North and of North and Savage made, altogether, about thirty thousand. Only about two hundred and fifty of these arms were rifles; the remaining ones were carbines. They were all iron barrels, with the exception of about five or six thousand of those made in 1848, ’49, ’50, ’51, ’52, which were made of steel, with side levers for raising the breech (Savage & North patent). All of these arms were made in a superior manner, with the best of materials and possible workmanship, were all properly inspected by the officers of the government appointed for that purpose, and the last five thousand referred to were received by Colonel Thornton for and in behalf of the United States.Full particulars of government trials can be had by examining the reports of boards appointed for the purpose between 1830 and 1855. I consider this last lot of five thousand steel barrels, when rifled and with breech enlarged, are now, and have always been, worth as much as any other carbines in use in the Army of the United States.

EDWARD SAVAGE

Austin Baldwin’s deposition confirmed what Savage and Marston had said, and added for the edification of Holt and Owen his assertion that the carbines were never manufactured except for the Government. This meant that It is therefore impossible, in the opinion of this deponent, to fix any price as their market value, for market value must at all times be regulated by the supply and demand. Baldwin stated the first cost of the carbines was about $20 but that because of large orders and the prospect of cash payment upon inspection and acceptance, overhead was reduced so the contract price was cut to $17.50.
Owen himself was an old hand in the arms market, and he considered this so much eyewash. The first bill of over half a hundred thousand had been paid; the second bill was the subject of Morgan’s claim. Ketchum had come to the financial aid of Morgan in making advances prior to Fremont’s anticipated payments, for Marston’s rifling and other costs. John C. Palmer, president of Sharps Rifle Company, was interviewed as to the value of the Halls. His guns were being bought in quantity by the United States at $30. Though he did admit that the Halls in August could have been sold for $20 to $22, he added pointedly, I should not exchange one of our carbines for three of Halls. He observed in comparison that state buyers had offered him up to $50 if he would sell to the states, but his desire to deal only with the United States made him refuse though it lost him money. Stevens was insistent in fixing the $22 value as a fair price for the carbines, and quizzed Palmer himself:

Question by Mr. Stevens: As Hall’s carbines cost the Government, when new, $17.50, and Sharps $30, what would be the relative difference in the increase of price owing to the demand in August, when you were offered $50 for your carbines?
Answer: My opinion on that would be very vague, but I should think that our carbine should sell for more than seventy-five percent over Hall’s carbine . . .

Stevens had made his point, but Hagner adamantly cut him down. The altered gun, in his own view, was worth only $10 to $12, the price at which Eastman had sold to Stevens at the time he offered to Fremont. In the timing of the transaction lay the crux of the matter. As the Commissioners pointed out, Simon Stevens appeared to have bought the carbines by August 1 when he agreed to lend Eastman the money but actually all he had was an option on them when Eastman went to pick them up. Fremont told Stevens by wire on August 6 that he would buy them all at Stevens’ quoted price. His wire, Devote yourself solely to that business today clearly intimated that Fremont supposed the guns were ready to roll and he needed them. As the Commission noted, the guns
were not delivered until weeks had passed, so no great urgency of the moment which might have justified spending public money to that extent was served by the purchase. Instead, much delay followed and the value declined as the urgency passed. Further, the title to the guns did not pass from the Government, which had offered them, to Eastman, who was the first link in the chain, until the day after Fremont, on account of the United States, accepted the offer to sell of Stevens. The Government lost all around as Holt figured it:

... If the purchase made by General Fremont is to be regarded as a valid purchase by the United States, the government not only sold, one day, for seventeen thousand four hundred and eighty six dollars arms which it had agreed, the day before, to repurchase for one hundred and nine thousand nine hundred and twelve dollars—making a loss to the United States on the transaction of ninety-two thousand four hundred and twenty six dollars ($92,426)—but virtually furnished the money to pay itself the seventeen thousand four hundred and eighty-six dollars which it received.

The purchase by Fremont was set aside by the Commission as not binding, in view of the law of 1815 which demanded public bidding on such purchases and required it to be done by authority of the Ordnance Department. But consideration of the daily irregularities in purchasing which in some instances had even been approved by the Commissioners as cases in equity, led them to accept the purchase as a fact and not try somehow to set it aside. The question of Simon Stevens’ role then was examined, and it was decided that he deserved no more than the amount he agreed to pay Eastman, plus his out-ofpocket expenses, plus a commission as a broker of 2Vi per cent. The basis for this was to contradict even Fremont’s own statement that he bought the arms from Stevens and not through him. Disregarding circumstantial evidence that Stevens was a sort of agent for Fremont so early as August 6, the logic of Judge Holt shone through the Commissioner’s ruling:
Mr. Stevens, however, when he made the offer to General Fremont, knew that the arms he proposed to sell at twentytwo dollars each were at that moment the property of the United States, and that if his (Stevens) offer was accepted, he would have to furnish the funds to buy them, the next day, from the United States, at three dollars and fifty cents each. It is impossible to regard such a transaction as having been entered upon in good faith, and as having, for such reason, an equitable claim to be confirmed.
Accordingly, the best sum the Commissioners could agree upon themselves to pay for these carbines which the Government was itself financing, was the amount Hagner cited as a fair market value. In support of this were sales, possibly unknown to Austin Baldwin, of April, 1861, in the New York market, of Hall carbines at prices between $6 and $10. And most convincing in fixing value of all the sales was the one from Eastman to Stevens, legitimate or not. Two shrewd businessmen, as the Commissioners described them, had fixed the price at $12.50, and the most
Stevens should be allowed was a brokerage commission in his sale to Fremont.
The added claim of Morgan was therefore disallowed. The amount already paid to Morgan, as the stakeholder in the Stevens-to-Eastman-to-Whiteley buck-passing game, was considered as on account. The actual price for the carbines was set at the Eastman-to-Stevens price of $12.50, plus packing boxes and accouterments which Eastman had sold to Stevens for $3,695.30 extra (though he failed to pay Whiteley for them upon the latter’s tendering a bill), plus the expenses of rifling and a 2 Vi per cent commission. The full amount was to be paid to Morgan upon the latter’s releasing the Government from further claims.
As to Ketchum’s part in making advances to Morgan for payment of the rifling and other work, the Commissioners regretted any embarrassment they might cause a loyal banking house. But they pointed out that the second voucher issued from Captain Callender upon which Morgan was trying to collect had not been signed by Fremont and was not valid; so they doubted the House of Ketchum had exercised due caution in its dealings with Morgan and Stevens, no matter in how much good faith they had acted. Ketchum expressed a willingness to accept the Commission’s offer to pay the difference, if this would not be construed as a waiver of future rights in claiming the greater balance. The Commission refused, wanting a full and complete settlement, and the money did not get to Stevens until six years later, after the war.
In the fall of 1866 Stevens petitioned the Court of Claims to render judgment in his favor and direct the United States to pay him the sum of the second voucher plus interest from the time he incurred the liability of the second voucher, that is, when he delivered the second 2,500 guns in September, 1861. Ripley and Eastman were not called in, but Stevens, Fremont, and Ketchum among others were questioned. The United States defended its position on three points:

1. That Fremont did not have the authority by virtue of his office to purchase arms.
2. That Fremont did not have any special instructions from the President (such as had been given to Schuyler and Hartley) to buy arms.
3. That Stevens had already been paid a fair price for the guns.

A judgment was handed down favoring Stevens by a three to one majority. The opinion of the Court decided that since the Chief Ordnance Officer under Fremont’s command could have procured the arms, the general was able in law to do what his subordinate could do. As to asking his subordinate to try and get arms, Fremont knew there were none to be had from the Ordnance Department, and he was excused by the Court because the law does not require the performance of a useless act. Fair market value was held to be the $22 and not the $12—it is worth considering that Fremont fixed the market value by his demand and willingness to pay $22. Stevens filed the Court of Claims judgment with the Treasury for payment and on August 24, after an appeal by the United States was dismissed, he was paid the amount of Morgan’s claim in full plus interest at 5 per cent from the time the judgment was filed.

Fremont’s Hussars

The Hall carbines alone did not cashier Fremont. Among other highly controversial matters in his conduct was the equipment and dress of the Fremont Hussars, his bodyguard regiment.
Officered by Hungarian cavalryman Charles Zagonyi, this elite body of troopers has been pictured as gaily caparisoned and living a life of luxurious ease in St. Louis at headquarters. Zagonyi, who had fought in the Hungarian revolution of 1848 against the combined Russian and Austrian armies, was a tough little man who had a great deal of respect and loyalty to Fremont. Though he had come to the United States to live a quiet life, he seemed stimulated by patriotic zeal as he saw the Union cleft in twain. At first captain, later major, he served with Fremont from July 12 to November 6, 1861, commanding four companies of cavalry. Though it has been said that these men carried Colt revolving rifles, Zagonyi only states their equipment was a revolver, and generally a sabre, and about two thirds had carbines. Some of these were unquestionably the Hall carbines issued during September by Callender.
Organized along Continental lines, what Zagonyi had recommended to be just one company, recognized as Fremont’s bodyguard but really a cadre for training officers, was swollen by enlistees to the four companies he at last commanded.
This cavalry . . . did every kind of duty in St. Louis, Zagonyi declared. I have been ordered out many times in the middle of the night . . . We did regular duty . . . We were everywhere scouting, reconnoitering, performing night-guard duty. Everything of that kind was done by my three companies, so that we never had twelve hours’ rest at any time, no man of us. The Hussars, dressed not in gold bullion and fourrageres, but in plain Army blue with gilt buttons, did double duty as provost marshal’s men in troubled St. Louis where every second man on the street was a Seccesh or a bushwhacker. And in combat they turned in a terrible and devastating account of themselves.
Zagonyi was a pitiless drill master, knowing that only through excellence could his men hope to survive. In an action on the road to Springfield, beyond the town of Warsaw, Missouri, the Hussars acquitted themselves bravely. When bullets started whistling about his ears, Zagonyi realized he could either advance or retreat, and the latter was out of the question. He at first ordered his men into a trot down a lane but in 200 yards about 40 had been unhorsed by Confederate riflemen. He then breached a fence and regrouped in a field, standing in the stirrups, sword point at chest height, and leading a charge. In five seconds, Zagonyi said, the Rebels had broken and fled; In that single attack I lost fifteen men killed . . . and the enemy’s dead men on the ground were 106. From raw recruits, in six weeks Zagonyi had made first class swordsmen of them.

We Hungarian cavalrymen teach our soldiers never to use the revolver, as they are of very little use. The sabre is the only arm the cavalry need if they are well drilled. There were no swords of my men that were not bloody; and I saw swords from which the blood was running down on the hand . . . (To learn the sabre) we worked from the time the sun was up until the sun went down; and in the evening I gave extra hours to my officers and non-commissioned officers, so that I had hardly four or five hours to myself nights; and I never saw that the general slept more. He beat me in work every day . . .

The dead, Zagonyi reported, all had sabre cuts in the head, and of the Rebel wounded, many more were rumored seriously injured and dying. Of his own men, Zagonyi had nothing but praise; in the words of this peppery officer one can sense the devotion which he must have inspired in his 300 troopers that day before Springfield; I stated to them that when I started, I expected to find about 300 or 400 of the enemy; but instead of that, the probability was that there were about 1,900 of the enemy. I told them I had made up my mind to attack the enemy, and I promised victory; but, I said that I did not want to throw away any lives, and I asked those who felt tired to step forward two steps, and I would put them on extra duty; but not one single man showed any tired or sickness; and every one of them, I saw their eyes grow big like your fist, every one . .
These men of iron that Zagonyi had recruited, elite in spirit and fighting courage if not in uniform and arms, were thrown away by their dismissal, discharged in disgrace. The cause: because of utterances claimed to be treasonous in their charge at Springfield. Zagonyi, following established custom for millenia, had given the men a battle cry: “the Union and the name of their general, Fremont. Washington thought this showed an attempt to set up Fremont as a higher officer and that sentiment was building up to establish a western republic with its center in Iowa. Zagonyi thought the idea ridiculous, and there is nothing in the Commission’s inquiry to show the truth was otherwise.

Birge’s Sharpshooters

Another group of good men who went down with Fremont were the Birge’s Sharpshooters. A regiment recruited along the same lines as the Berdan regiment of the east, these squirrel hunters, if disciplined along military lines, could have done great damage to the irregular Confederate forces. Their arms were obtained under contract for 1,000 pieces with Horace E. Dimick, a displaced Yankee gunsmith who had achieved fame and prosperity in St. Louis. He had in 1848 considered making Colt’s patent revolvers under license from the inventor to supply the western market. Now he turned his talents to buying guns. Headed 1,000 rifles with sword bayonets, Dimick’s contract was embodied in letters proposing to furnish rifles and Callender’s acceptance of the terms on September 18, 1861.
I can furnish the regiment of Colonel Birge with
1,000 rifles of the same general character as samples exhibited at headquarters,
Dimick wrote to Fremont on September 11. He declared a difference in barrel lengths of not more than 3 inches should be allowed, and bullet weights to range from a half ounce to an ounce. He proposed to purchase them from gunsmiths
in the different cities in the west, offering his services to undertake this commission. He had 150 such rifles in stock, and calculated a price of $25 on an average would do the job. To close the deal he agreed to supply a bullet mould and ball screw and wiper with each gun, and 10 extra ball screws and 10 spring vises to every 100 rifles. The rifles to be sighted, and to be equal in every respect to the sample which Colonel Birge has, and to be subject to his inspection . . . and only those

Percussion sporting rifles were also obtained by Fremont while commander at St. Louis. Shown are two typical St. Louis rifles by Hawken compared (full view) with Harpers Ferry U.S. Model 1803 half-stock rifle. Two-wedge style of forearm is typical of St. Louis rifles.

Full view of two Hawkens and Harpers Ferry M1803 rifle. U.S. gun has had brass sheath repair to stock skillfully applied. Horace E. Dimick was contractor who supplied General Fremont with 472 sporting rifles for Birge’s Sharpshooter regiment. Order called for “with sword bayonets

but collectors believe lot was mixture of many sporting and militia arms Dimick delivered.

accepted by him shall be paid for . . Dimick promised in writing.
The specific character of rifles Dimick promised to get is difficult to assess, conforming as they must to a long discarded sample rifle once in Colonel Birge’s care. By April 27, 1862, Dimick had delivered 472 sporting rifles at $25 each; the account was paid May 20. But, considering the irregularities in getting funds out to Fremont, and the fact Dimick had 150 guns actually on hand in September, it is no libel to suppose he had actually delivered at least the 150 by the end of September. We believe these arms included para-military target rifles of the prong butt style affected by the German-Swiss schuetzen clubs of the middle west in the 1850’s. Often they were fitted for bayonet—socket, clasp, or sword—to conform to a special shooting match for military target work. Some of these special rifles, adapted for fighting, and for accurate shooting, were what Dimick obtained. When Birge’s Sharpshooters were disbanded and translated into the 67th Regiment Illinois Volunteers, a colorful corps of men vanished from history. Their patron, General Fremont, nearly did, too. Yet his faults in the armaments race were three:
He equipped his men with 5,000 new breech-loading .58 caliber carbines when there were none to be had at any price.
He established a training cadre that in six weeks turned plow jockeys into tiger-mad swordsmen willing to follow a crazy, but valiant little Hungarian saddle tramp into the gates of Hell.
He set up a corps of trained, expert woodsmen, dressed in forest green and wielding bayoneted target rifles capable of placing a bullet into a Reb’s belt buckle ten times out of ten at 200 meters.
With theserrors, the record of Fremont in the West was ended.