CHAPTER 13 The Dreaded Horizontal Shot-Tower

Number of Spencers Purchased Spencer was born at Manchester, Connecticut, June 20, 1833; he remained identified with Connecticut industry all his life and died there, prosperous and founder of the famous Billings & Spencer firm, manufacturers of drop forging tools, on January 14, 1922. Patentee of designs in silk-winding machinery, automatic screw machines and turret lathes, he is known for his development of the seven-shot Spencer repeating rifle and carbine. Buckeridge estimates 230,000 Spencer arms were used in the war; Harold Peterson in a profile on Spencer appearing in American Rifleman, more conservatively noted that 200,000 Spencer rifles and carbines are thought to have been employed in combat. The number is quite large, so large as to suggest error. Some 94,196 Spencer carbines are listed as procured in the war at a cost of $2,393,633.82; and 12,471 Spencer rifles, costing $467,390.56. Spencer cartridges totalling 58,238,294 were bought for $1,419,277.16. These purchases, by the Ordnance Department, spanned the period January 1, 1861 to June 30 (end fiscal year) 1866. They do not include the Navy’s early purchase of 700 Spencer rifles at the beginning of the war.

Types of Spencers Two basic Spencer arms were used during the war; in one of them, the rifle, there are two detail variations. The carbine and rifle are of the same design exactly from the breech of the barrel to the buttstock; forward, the rifle has a 30-inch barrel, a long forestock held by band springs and three iron bands. Beneath the rifle barrel at the muzzle is a bayonet stud for sword bayonet, on those rifles delivered for the Navy. The Army pattern takes the regular socket bayonet, triangu- lar blade, as used on the Sharps. The carbine has a 20- inch barrel, one band. In many of the parts, there are similar or identical dimensions to like parts in the Sharps arms, reflecting the assistance both technical and production given to Spencer by R. S. Lawrence, contractor on Sharps Rifle Company work in Hartford during the war. The Spencer for the Army, the rifle, is largest of all Spencer arms in the bore, taking the No. 56-56 Spencer cartridge. Some confusion in nomenclature has existed over the various Spencer calibers, but Colonel B. R. Lewis is satisfied in his own researches that the Civil War Spencer must be the No. 56-56 straight-cased cartridge, not the No. 56-52, which is slightly tapered or bottlenecked, and of nominally smaller .52-inch bore.
Three general classes of arms exist that were made under Spencer’s direction. The earliest are sporting rifles and a few semi-military small-caliber carbines, made and marked in Hartford, Connecticut. The main factory for Spencer production was subsequently established in the premises of the Chickering Piano Company building in Boston, on Tremont Street. The “Boston” Spencer is the rifle of the war. At the close of the war, the Burnside Rifle Company of Providence, Rhode Island, contracted to build and remodel Spencer arms; they turned out rifles which saw service for a brief time in the Indian Wars. It is supposed by some that Custer’s dash and heedlessness, armed as he was later, with single-shot Springfields, might have stemmed from the firepower efficiency of his Michigan troopers who carried Spencer 7-shooters in the war.
Early Spencer Models Spencer’s first gun patent of March 6, 1860, No. 27393, reveals how early he had turned his talents to arms inventions. His was no sudden desire to capitalize on the need for arms, though certainly a boyhood enthu- siasm for guns had matured in the martial spirit of the times. A second patent of July 29, 1862, No. 36062, described and claimed the “perfected” Boston Spencer.
Certainly by the end of 1859, Spencer had built his first models. While the exact location of his shop is not known, it seems probable that they were made in the Robbins and Lawrence works managed by R. S. Lawrence in Hartford. Small frame arms adapted to the justdeveloped .44 rimfires, like the .44 Henry, were Spencer’s first output. Specimens in the Winchester Museum

Small frame Hartford-made Spencer carbine cal. .44RF has Lawrence sight of type fitted to Sharps guns; reveals Sharps contractor’s interest in Chris Spencer’s new repeater: 19 Vi-inch barrel carbine is serial 5, one of few made.
suggest there is a sequence of design, judging from the gradual discontinuance of unnecessary furbelows as the arm was refined. All lever action rifles made by Spencer had 7-shot tubular magazines inserted into the buttstock:. All had a rolling breechblock moved by an under lever, to charge the chamber and eject the empty shell.
All had side back-action locks and side hammers manually cocked for each shot. Sporting rifles and military arms were made, in two frame sizes.
The .44’s and .36’s are the earliest arms of the Spencer system. They are “tool room models.” A ring- ended lever specimen numbered “15” on left side of breechblock and forward end of finger lever bears the mark c. m. spencer Hartford, ct. pat^d mar. 6, 1860 atop the breech. Caliber is .36 rimfire; 24%-inch octagonal barrel, browned. The extractor is made like a segment of a buzz saw, that is, the type shown in the original patent drawing. Whether fabrication of this and other arms was not commenced until the patent' was issued, or was begun some months before and marked prior to case-hardening and finishing, is not known. Neither is it known for sure what were Spencer’s plans for production. Did he hope to put across a .36 or .44 rifle or carbine for militia, or was he simply thinking of it as a practical sporting rifle, carry Simple and strong rolling breech design was unlocked by pulling down lever, which withdrew top section of block from engagement at rear with receiver, and permitted whole assembly to roll back. Cartridges fed from butt tube and emerged into space beside sling bar base, to be pushed into chamber on closing breechblock.
ing a day’s supply of shots without the need for flask or bullet pouch? Except for the detail of the extractor, this arm is identical to one illustrated in the Scientific American January 25, 1862. No big frame gun is known marked “Hartford.” A carbine of military form, small framed, caliber .44 long rimfire, 19 Vi-inch barrel, is also in the Winchester museum. It is number 5. In addition to the C. M. Spencer marking as above, the rear sight base is marked R. s. lawrence/patented/ feb. 15, 1859, some tangible evidence of Lawrence’s aid to Spencer; the sight base is the same as that found on Sharps New Model 1859 and 1863 rifles and carbines.
Spencer Finds a Factory Between his patent of March 6, 1860, and the summer of the following year, Spencer found capital and organized a factory. His mentor was Charles Cheney, owner of silk mills in Manchester where he (Spencer) had got his start and where he returned after a brief period working at Colt’s.
Cheney had lived next door in Hartford to Gideon Welles, who in 1861 was Secretary of the United States Navy. With the irony that characterizes the crosscurrents of interest and patronage in government, it is amusing to note that lovingly preserved today (by Massachusetts collector Gerald Fox) is a handsome Henry rifle, one of the first made, serial number 9, inscribed “Gideon Welles - Secretary - Navy.” But the gift to Welles availed Winchester nothing.
With Spencer, it was a different story. Cheney introduced Spencer to Welles and a test of the new gun was arranged at the Washington Navy Yard. A trial board under Captain, later Admiral Dalhgren, test-fired the weapon in June, 1861, and reported:
The mechanism is compact and strong. The piece was fired five hundred times in succession, partly divided between two mornings. There was but one failure to fire, supposed to be due to the absence of fulminate. In every other instance, the operation was complete. The mechanism was not cleaned, and yet worked throughout as at first. Not the least foulness on the outside, and very little within. The least time of firing seven rounds was ten seconds.
Government Contracts Within weeks, Spencer received an order for two rifles; a week later, there arrived a Navy Department order for 700 adapted for the sword bayonet.
Frank Cheney and Christopher Spencer went to Boston to supervise the manufacture of these first Navy rifles in leased premises of the idle Chickering Piano plant. “It was the beginning of struggles and troubles,” Spencer later told his children. “The installation of the machinery, building a forging shop, making of tools, fixtures, gauges, and many special machines, and finishing the first of the Navy guns, all within a year, was a Herculean task.”
Though the Navy required but 700 rifles, apparently Spencer was willing to make 1,000 in the first lot; his daughter, Mrs. Vesta Spencer Taylor, recalls that from the Navy Yard tests came “an order from the Navy Department for one thousand guns.” It is likely that Spencer would speak of making “one thousand guns” and also of making “guns for the Navy,” and it is equally likely that given an order for 700, he would plan to make 300 additional for profitable speculative sale. But 1,000 arms was not enough to justify the expenditure of half a million dollars capital and, again, politics was resorted to in order to obtain Government business. Through James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House of Representatives, a requirement for an additional 10,000 rifles was passed to the Secretary of War by the Navy. But the matter was not without its technical and official sanction; the rifles were obtained only after official favorable tests, ordered by General Mc-Clellan.
According to Special Order No. 311, Major General McClellan appointed Captain Alfred Pleasonton, Captain A. Sully, and Lieutenant S. C. Bradford, all Regular Army, to test the Spencer rifle. Colonel C. P. Kingsbury, after whom the present Kingsbury Ordnance Works in Indiana is named, was then Chief of Ordnance on McClellan’s staff, Army of the Potomac. He had written his opinion of the rival Henry rifle on November 16, 1861, saying: “As I have no doubts of the merits of ‘Henry’s Repeating Rifle,’ compared with other breechloaders, I think it would be well to purchase a number sufficient for one regiment.” Making an invidious distinction between it and the Spencer, he said, “Henry’s rifle appears to be . . . superior to others in that it may be fired 15 times without reloading . . .”
Spencer Company agent Warren Fisher got after the McClellan crowd. The test board under Pleasonton, who was to become a major general and organizer of the highly effective Union cavalry later in the war, convened on November 22 at the Washington Arsenal, and rendered its decision: “The Rifle is simple and compact in construction, and (taking a slap at the Henry with its exposed magazine spring) less liable to get out of order than any other breech-loading arm now in use.” The board also tested the new .56-56 carbine, and was “particularly pleased with it,” recommending it as “a very useful arm for the Mounted Service.” It was dis- covered by Pleasonton that the Spencer could be held beneath the arm, pressed against the body, and the lever worked, cycling cartridges into the chamber, the hammer being thumb-cocked. The Spencer firm made hay of this in a later catalog, stating “Its special aptitude for the Cavalry Service may be inferred from the single fact that but one hand is required to load and fire it.” Kingsbury was whipped into line, evidently, for the same catalog also noted after the November 22 tests that “Colonel Kingsbury . . . concurred substantially in the foregoing opinions, and as the result of these several examinations, trials, and tests, the War Department ordered ten thousand of the rifles for the United States Service.”
Following the November 22, 1861 tests, Spencer was informed that he should write directly to the Secretary of War and tell him how rapidly Spencer rifles could be furnished, and at what price. That the arm was satis-factory, was now established. The day after Christmas, Simon Cameron was handed a letter by Warren Fisher, Jr., who was in Washington personally to get the order:
Washington, December 18, 1861 Sir: The proprietors of the Spencer repeating rifle propose to contract with the United States for the manufacture and delivery of ten thousand of said arms, with triangular bayonet, and the usual appendages for service, at the rate of ($40) forty dollars for each rifle complete. The whole number of rifles to be delivered for inspection at the manufactory in Boston within the year 1862, as follows: 500 in the month of March; 1,000 in each of the months of April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November; 1,500 in the month of December.
Your obedient servant Warren Fisher, Jr.
One of the proprietors of the Spencer repeating rifle To: Hon. Simon Cameron,
Secretary of War
Ordnance General Ripley is always held up as the bugaboo of independent arms inventors, but on the same day Fisher sent the above note around to the Secretary of War, Ripley received and acted on his instructions, which were to accept the proposal and buy the rifles. Had Ripley honestly felt the purchase of 10,000 new-fangled Spencer repeaters was a bad thing for the service, he likely would have objected to these instructions.
Cameron was a political appointee, given the post of War Secretary in token of his political support of Lincoln, not because he was especially well versed in military affairs like one of his predecessors, Jefferson Davis. Cameron often did bow to Ripley’s judgment, not in any degree servile, but as an executive of the company might rely upon a trusted employee’s technical counsel. The delay between receipt and reading of the Fisher proposal, and the issue by Ripley of the order, could not have consumed more than a couple of hours:
Ordnance Office Washington, December 26, 1861 Sir: By direction of the Secretary of War, I offer you an order for ten thousand (10,000) Spencer breech-loading magazine rifles, with angular bayonets and appendages, on the following terms and conditions, viz: These rifles are all to be of the same pattern, and of the calibre .58-inch, and are to be subject to inspection and proof by such inspectors as the department may designate . . . Payments are to be made ... at the rate of forty dollars ($40) for each arm complete . . .
Respectfully, your obedient servant
James W. Ripley,
Brigadier General
To
Warren Fisher, Jr., Esqr.
Boston, Massachusetts
Fisher returned to Boston and, receiving the Ripley letter on the 31st, immediately accepted. The description of the rifle obtained is also quite clear: a “Boston” Spencer, adapted for angular bayonet, not with the sword stud; and in caliber .58. The cartridge that the Spencer actually used is known as the “56-56”, listed as late as 1914, in a Winchester Cartridge catalog as: “.56-.56, adapted to Spencer, Ballard, and Joslyn carbines; powder ... 45 grains; bullets . . . 350 grains; per 1,000, $40.” Above this listing is that of the bottleneck, later-developed Spencer round, ,56-.52, with the legend “Adapted to Spencer military and other rifles.” This has led recent researchers to conclude the Spencer Military of the War is a .52, whereas it is in fact the

First U.S.-bought Spencers were rifles, though illustration in Official Records Atlas omits third (rear) barrel band. Socket bayonet was same pattern but not interchangeable with U.S. Rifle Musket bayonet. Caliber ordered was .58 (.56).

 conforming, with the loose tolerance of the day, to General Ripley’s specification of “calibre .58 inch.” As the number of Spencer rifles bought during the war was only 12,471, it would seem the long arm had less effect on the course of battles than the carbine. This is not quite true, for Wilder’s brigade and other mounted infantry units were armed with the long rifle, though the newly organized cavalry, among them the Michigan regiments including one under General Custer, carried carbines as well as some rifles. But for a time it looked as if the 10,000-gun order was going to be cut off com- pletely by Joseph Holt and Robert Dale Owen.
Upon their appeal to all parties to furnish them with copies of contracts, Warren Fisher responded quickly with a letter detailing the status of his work on the 10,000 Spencer rifle order. Alexander H. Rice was his first intermediary to whom he sent contract papers, asking Mr. Rice to deliver them to Holt and Owen on March 22, 1852. Then on April 24, Fisher sought out his representative, J. Hooper from Boston, and had him write a letter introducing Fisher to Holt and Owen personally. As a result of this he was asked to detail in a sort of memorandum what the Company had accomplished. Fisher stated that when Cameron retired from the cabinet, he had written to Washington to make sure nothing had interfered with the contract of December 26, 1861. The Assistant Secretary, on January 25, 1862, had reassured him in writing that all was well: “The gun is good, and needed for our sharpshooters— an arm of the service for which it is intended.”
When on January 29 Stanton ordered copies of contracts from the contractors, Fisher prepared his and sent them in by February 4-5. Meanwhile Ripley had requested that Fisher supply a Spencer machine-made military rifle of the exact pattern he was proposing to furnish, so it could be studied at the Ordnance Office and approved. Earlier guns tested had been made gen- erally by hand and Ripley always wanted the exact article as a pattern. Fisher had obtained specimens of all the parts for the rifle and they were assembled in April, though the sample gun was not proof-tested.
On February 24 he went to Washington to deliver the pattern rifle to Ripley and also to see Holt and Owen. While Ripley momentarily objected to the pattern rifle, suspecting that the receiver was made of malleable iron, he approved the pattern when reassured that the receiver was in fact a solid forging, machined. Holt and Owen also were cordial, did not intimate to Fisher that any interference in the contract might occur. Then, while in Washington again on 15 May, they indicated their intention to review the order to the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company and reduce the quantities or suggest that a delivery of Springfield rifle muskets be substituted for repeating Spencer guns. Fisher objected most strenuously to either idea. Quite well informed concerning the money his company had paid out for special tools to build the repeater, he at once countered with a “buy me out” proposal as one fair solution; also that the Government pay the actual amount expended for tools, as determined from an appraisal and examination of vouchers and receipts. Secondly, he proposed that the order be changed from rifles to carbines for cavalry; 6,500 carbines of large size (.56-.56) and 6,500 small size carbines, caliber .44 rimfire, apparently, as Fisher said, weighing about 6V2 pounds. He offered 1,000 a month, deliveries to begin in August 1862; but the pattern rifle had not at that time been approved and its approval was delaying the work. Holt and Owen accordingly summed up the matter with their decision of May 31, 1862.
Finding that deliveries scheduled for March, April, and May, amounting to 2,500 guns, had not been made, they relieved the Government of the responsibitity of taking them and reduced the Spencer order to 7,500 rifles. Of these, first delivery was to be 1,000 in June and 1,000 monthly thereafter until 7,500 were taken. Ripley at last approved the pattern rifle on June 9. Fisher asked Holt and Owen, because of this delay, to extend the time of delivery to August, but they remained firm. Actual delivery of rifles began December 1862. First were 600 rifles accepted by Naval Sub-Inspector Mr. Griffith. On December 4 he inspected the 600 guns, proof-testing 700 barrels, of which but one burst. The proof charge was a cylindrical bullet, first with 280 grains of powder, and second with 250 grains. The burst barrel was discovered to have a flaw causing the failure; this was the fault of the steel maker, not of Spencer’s armorers. The parts were then inspected by Griffiths, and after all the rifles were assembled, he returned on the 10th and fired each rifle about 10 times. In 6,000 shots only 4 of the Spencer-made cartridges failed to fire. The charge was 34 grains of powder, contrasted with Spencer’s direct competitor, the Sharps New Model 1859 Navy rifle which, according to Naval Inspector Captain John S. Chauncy, carried a 64-grain charge. Chauncy inferred that the excellent ballistic performance of the Spencer round came in part from the fulminate inside the cartridge case.
The Navy order was ready for shipping by December 25, 1862, packed in chests of ten guns each, plus sword bayonets, brushes, cleaning rods, and screw drivers. Presumably the final 100 guns to complete the order were assembled when Spencer had a barrel ready to replace the burst one, and this may have taken a week, or ten days.
These rifles were ultimately issued to the Mississippi flotilla of gunboats and “cotton clads.” They proved effective counters to the fire of Confederate sharpshooters from overhanging river bluffs, who liked to drop minie balls inside open-topped gun turrets.
By the end of December, the rifles for the Army were also being boxed and shipped out; presumably 20 per chest as General Ripley desired. By the summer of 1863, several thousand of these infantry arms had given a good account of themselves.
Spencers Used in the War General Norton in 1872 (American Breechloading Small Arms) conservatively estimated, and most realistically, that of the Spencer gun “over 100,000 arms of this system have been in use in the Army of the United States.” Perhaps the first of such arms was a gun—we do not know whether it was a rifle or carbine—that Spencer shipped to his friend Sergeant Francis O. Lom- bard, with the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, who was a former Smith & Wesson gunsmith. Eventually Massachusetts ordered 1,500 Spencer arms. Sergeant Lombard used this gun, shots fired in anger, at Cumberland, Maryland, in a skirmish occurring on October 16, 1862.
Production of parts was speeding up and rifles were beginning to be put together for the Navy. Spencer felt it was a good time to be off on a selling trip. He wanted to emphasize the carbine, because although he charged less for it, it was also less expensive and so could be produced in greater numbers more quickly. The barrel, which Spencer drilled from solid steel, took half the time and half the cost to make, as did the rifle barrel. The armies in the late fall were getting into winter quarters, and the busy impresario-engineer took a swing through the lines in Northern Virginia and then went west to visit Grant and the Army of the Tennessee.
Grant himself could not order the purchase of any arms. His men did not get new rifles until July of 1863 when after the fall of Vicksburg they were re-equipped with captured Southern Enfields, discarding their smoothbore Springfield muskets of 1842 and earlier patterns.

Standard Spencer carbine was made by Boston firm in old Chickering Piano Factory building, had improved Lawrence rear sight, was rather clubby in shape but strongly built. Protected magazine in butt was deemed superior to Henry.

Spencer had some luck with individual commanders and with men who were willing to buy rifles with their own pocket money. From lieutenants who ordered at company or battalion level to colonels on brigade command duty who ordered thousands at a time, he found a ready acceptance not only because his was a repeating rifle, but because he was ready to deliver it. By the spring and summer of 1863, Spencer rifles and carbines had been in use on many fronts, and the reports began to come in.
Captain G. M. Barber, Ohio Sharpshooters, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, May 19, 1863, noted: “I have
Standard Spencer carbine was made by Boston firm in old Chickering Piano Factory building, had improved Lawrence rear sight, was rather clubby in shape but strongly built. Protected magazine in butt was deemed superior to Henry.
been drilling my battalion together with some companies of the 10th Ohio Infantry, in target practice for some time past, and it has given me a fine opportunity to test your rifle and compare it with the ‘Enfield’ (of the 10th Ohio) and the result is more than forty per cent in favor of the Spencer Rifle. It is admitted by all who have witnessed our practice that we have the best gun in the Army ... On long ranges they exceed our expectations . .
Specimen carbines were also distributed to officers who could hit the mark and report. “Yesterday Colonel Wass and myself went out with our pickets,” wrote Colonel T. E. Chickering, 41st Massachusetts, and possibly of the piano family, in a letter dated Baton Rouge, Louisiana, January 13, 1863. “(I took) my carbine along, for amusement. We fired at targets at musket range. The target was about 5 feet long 18 inches wide. I hit the target every shot, and put one ball through the very centre of the bullseye, beating the whole party. The little gun shoots most admirably, and is all the Rifle Company claims for it.”
At Norfolk, Virginia, where General King’s regiment was digging out of its winter quarters, his A.A.G. Captain R. Chandler wrote to Spencer, “In every particular, it surpasses all breech-loading arms I have yet seen, and must eventually supersede the old musket for war purposes.”
The man who did the most to spread the fame of the Spencers, the man who caused the Confederates to talk of it as the “horizontal shot tower” so formidable was its output of hot lead as fired by a regiment armed with Spencers, the man who fired his guns so fast and furiously that bewildered Rebels marched in as prisoners asked “What kind of hell-fire guns have you got?”, didn’t want Spencers in the first place. Colonel John Thomas Wilder, commanding 1st Mounted Brigade of the 17th Indiana Volunteers, passed a request for prices of Henry rifles to Oliver Winchester under date of March 20, 1863. Two of his regiments had received their horses and were exercising with them as mounted infantry, fighting mainly on foot, and arriving at the battle site on horses. The men were willing to buy repeaters, so Wilder, probably as much from curiosity as any special partiality to the Henry arm, asked the New Haven Arms Company to state prices for 900 rifles, with slings, without ammunition (they would draw on the Government for ammunition). The men were willing and able to pay for these arms from their $13 monthly wages; Wilder himself, proprietor of an hydraulic machinery works, would guarantee the amount. The ammunition not only came from Frank- ford Arsenal ammunition works near Philadelphia, but from firms like C. D. Leet & Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, and Smith & Wesson who by 1865 had produced millions of cartridges for the Spencers.
And at the “Metallic Cartridge Manufactory” of Crittenden & Tibbals in South Coventry, Connecticut, an unusual endurance record was taking place. The .56-.56 cartridges were supplied by this firm early in production of the big rifle, and they obtained in April, 1862, one rifle for ammunition testing. In use for 2V2 years, it was fired by their count at least 16,000 times, not being cleaned more than three times, and as of September 10, 1864 it was “now in good working order.”
So durable an arm was Wilder’s second choice, and Spencer was quick to supply his requirements. By the time the Henry people had informed them that they could not deliver the rifles needed in time, Wilder’s brigade included other regiments that wanted repeaters. The order was passed to Spencer for 2,000 rifles, to be usd by Wilder’s Mounted Infantry, the celebrated “Lightning Brigade,” sometimes called “Hatchet Brigade” because he armed them with axes as camp equip- ment and to cut breastworks rapidly from brush in the field.
During April or May, 1863, Wilder’s Brigade received its issue of Spencer rifles. These were not carbines, but the long 30-inch barrel .56-.56 rifles, adapted for angular bayonet. “My Brigade of Mounted Infantry have repeatedly routed and driven largely superior forces of rebels, in some instances five or six times our number and this result is mainly due to our being armed with the Spencer repeating rifle,” wrote Wilder to Warren Fisher. “Since using this gun we have never been driven a single rod by any kind of force or number of the enemy. At Hoover’s Gap, in Tennessee, on June 24, 1863, one of my regiments fairly defeated a rebel brigade of five regiments, they admitting a loss of over 500, whilst our loss was 47 . . . No line of men, who come within fifty yards of another force armed with the Spencer repeating rifles, can either get away alive, or reach them with a charge, as in either case they are certain to be destroyed by the terrible fire poured into their ranks by cool men thus armed. My men feel as if it is impossible to be whipped, and the confidence inspired by these arms added to their terribly destructive capacity, fully quadruples the effectiveness of my command.”
Spencer, during his sojourn in Hartford with Colt, had learned the value of testimonials. Officers in these days were less likely to cover up their opinions, too, and many like Wilder were quite outspoken in their favorit- ism for special rifles. But even such old time Regulars as General O. O. Howard (“I prefer it to any other repeating rifle”) or Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, long time friend of Sam Colt (“the terrible roll that the Spencer carbines beat had utterly routed them”) were willing to stand on their statements in favor of the Spencer. Though personal data is scanty, Spencer it seems quite obviously desired the general junking of the Springfield rifle musket, muzzle loading, percussion cap, and the obtaining of a sufficient number of his rifles to arm the Union. In this, the sentiments such as expressed by General Hawley supported him: “Our army has . . . thrown away an advantage equal to 50 per cent of its force, in not arming every man with a breechloader, and if possible a magazine rifle with a metallic cartridge ... It is as easy to bring along ammu- nition wagons as wagons with rations, and as easy to have a detail to bring up cartridges, as one to carry stretchers.”
The Spencer in Battle Gettysburg has been called the high-water mark of the Confederacy. But some researchers have chosen to title their essays provocatively “Who Won At Gettysburg?” In the North, it was viewed as a defeat for the South. Only in armchair generalling can it be unques- tionably asserted that it is a high-water mark. A good case can be made out for a dozen different “turning points” or decisive moments during the battle, which, though not recorded in history, might have resulted in the battle going the other way. Longstreet’s hesitation of an extra five minutes because of the sudden bewil- dering fire from Berdan’s Sharpshooters armed with Sharps Rifle and the Colt Rifle, is such a moment; so, too, is the moment of destiny ascribed to the Federal troops armed with Spencer’s seven-shooter. The echoes of July in Pennsylvania had sobbed into memory when the Boston Journal for October 21, 1863, published a most laudatory essay on the Spencer rifle at Gettysburg:
In the Army of the Potomac it is equally well known. The daring and dashing feats of the 5th and 7th Michigan Cavalry, under the lead of the intrepid Kilpatrick, have become historic. In the great Battle of Gettysburg these regiments achieved the most enduring renown by the success with which they foiled all the efforts of Stuart to get into our rear, to cut our communications or to capture and destroy our ammunition and supply trains. And in the pursuit of Lee, until he escaped across the Potomac, these regiments were constantly upon his heels, and their brilliant charge upon his rear guard at Falling Waters (where they captured more prisoners than their own number) must be fresh in the memory of our readers.
As Pleasonton’s cavalry unpleasantly pursued the fleeing forces of Lee along the Rapidan, trooper Robert Trouax distinguished himself “with his Seven Shooting Spencer rifle, killing six rebels as they were crossing the river.”
An unknown chronicler who addressed a report on Gettysburg to the Scientific American (published December 26, 1863) stated:
After the battle at Gettysburg whilst our cavalry were pursuing the Rebels, our regiment was employed as skirmishers; some of our boys got into a mill, the Rebels holding a stone wall opposite; these hearing our guns go off would rise up thinking they would find us unloaded, but would fall back carrying rather more lead than was agreeable. The “lohnnies” couldn’t stand this long, and retired. Shortly after this we took a captured officer across this part of the field to the rear. When he saw his men lying there he began to complain bitterly against our barbarity. He was asked to explain, when he pointed to his dead, saying “Almost all are shot through the head,” implying that they had been murdered after surrendering; but when he was shown one of our rifles he only wondered “that more were not shot.”
One day as our line of skirmishers was advancing, one of the lohnnies yelled out, “Helloa Yanks, have you got them damned guns loaded to the muzzle again?” Whilst the cavalry was picketing along Robertson’s River, skirmishing was fre- quent along the line, but when our regiment took its turn we exchanged but a few shots with them when they offered the following propositions:—“Say there, if you’ns won’t shoot, wee’ns won’t shoot,” and peace existed along the lines as long as our regiment remained.
A hopeful editorial appearing about this time in another Boston paper suggested that Spencer’s repeater was an instrument of peace. So certain was it in dealing death, “the sooner fighting comes to be the certain
Repeater dubbed “horizontal shot tower” was adopted as corps insignia by cavalryman Wilson.
annihilation of one or both of the contending parties, the sooner fighting will be abandoned as a useless waste of human life . . . People will think twice before resort- ing to deadly weapons, when those weapons are the assurance of nothing short of certain death.”
Apparently at least one Rebel soldier held to this view though the closeness with which the shots clustered about him might suggest he had strong persuasion at work: “I was under good cover (at Gettysburg) but when exposing myself was fired upon; thinking I had drawn their fire I stepped out when another ball just missed me; I thought that perhaps they had a double barreled gun and I had him sure. I stepped out again when another ball grazed me; then I thought there must be two of them in front of me. I then stepped entirely from under my cover, determined to have my chance for a shot, and was wounded by a fourth shot. While I was lying there I heard three more shots in rapid succession from the same gun, when our boys fell back and (the Yankees) came up and sent me prisoner to the rear. There’s no use fighting against such guns . . .” The Yanks would try this ruse often, once they got the hang of it: a volley, to simulate the discharge of a number of Springfield rifled muskets; then hold fire till the Confederates exposed themselves and give them sure, aimed shots.

Repeater dubbed "horizontal shot tower" was adopted as corps insignia by cavalryman Wilson

Spencer Sees Lincoln

With such a battle record, Spencer decided to again go to Washington. The plum he apparently sought was the complete arming of all Union forces with his repeating rifle, and the abandonment of Springfield rifle musket production. The 7th New Hampshire, once issued some Spencers, was to have their repeaters called in and defective Springfields issued, causing them to lose a battle. Such a thing Spencer hoped to avoid, for he intended to go to the highest authority. He went to Gideon Welles and this time met the President.
There is a fascinating legend attached to this inter- view. It relates how young Spencer, his rejected rifle presumably under his arm, was disconsolately wander- ing the halls of the War Office building trying to find someone who would listen to him and order some guns. We are given a picture of a lad barely out of his teens, a truly quixotic figure. A kindly old Negro porter is said to have taken pity on him, and to have told Spencer, “You come with me, I’ll take you to someone who will take a look at your rifle.” And so he takes Spencer to the White House and introduces him to President Lincoln quite unofficially. Thereafter follows the celebrated shooting match at the shingle, on the White House lawn, and as proof of the story, the shingle preserved in a museum is cited as evidence.
There is some truth to this story. Spencer did see Lincoln, but not so naively as the story suggests. And in two published accounts of this meeting, there are differences which though detailed, suggest inaccuracies in either the recollections of Spencer’s daughter, or the reporting of J. O. Buckeridge as cited in Saturday Evening Post “Abe and His ‘Secret’ Weapon,” March 31, 1956. Spencer’s daughter, Vesta Spencer Taylor, published “A Personal Reminiscence” appended to Harold Peterson’s article “The Repeater Lincoln Tested,” in The American Gun, Vol. 1, No. 1, Winter 1961. In both essays, a lengthy quotation directly attributed to C. M. Spencer is published. Although Harold Peterson was quite incensed over editorial changes made in his manuscript by the publishers, which may have been necessary in the interests of shortening it but which also introduced technical errors of fact which Peterson had not made, it seems doubtful if any changes of wording would be made in so valuable
a source document as C. M. Spencer’s own words describing his visit with Lincoln. It is therefore reproduced here verbatim from that source:
On the 18th of August, 1863, I arrived at the White House with the rifle in hand, and was immediately ushered into the executive room. I found the President alone. With brief introduction I took the rifle from its case and presented it to him. Looking it over carefully and handling it as one familiar with firearms, he requested me to take it apart to show the “Inwardness of the thing.” It was soon dissected, and laid on the table before him. After a careful examination and his. emphatic approval, I was asked if I had any engagement for the following day. When I replied that I was at his command, he requested that I “Come over tomorrow at 2 o’clock, and we will go out and see the thing shoot.”
Here was no sudden secret interview; Lincoln was expecting Spencer, and had put aside a few minutes for him to determine if there was any purpose in spending the time of the Government in Spencer’s interest. Con- vinced, upon superficial examination, there was, he was then willing to arrange time on the morrow to shoot the gun. The reports of officers were only con- firming what he would himself discover, if it seemed as good as it looked, as a repeating rifle.
Spencer continues:
Arriving at the appointed time, I found all in readiness to proceed to the shooting place, which was about where now stands the Washington Monument. (Buckeridge also places the site for shooting at the Mall, but states it was 1862. We prefer Spencer’s version). Accompanying us was his son, Robert, and one of the officers of the Navy Department who carried the target and rifle, with the ammunition. Arriving at a point opposite the War Department the President requested Robert to go over and ask Mr. Stanton to come and see this new gun fired. Robert soon returned and reported Mr. Stanton too busy to attend. “Well,” says the President, in his humorous way, “they do pretty much as they have a mind to over there.”
While we were waiting for Robert, Mr. Lincoln discovered that one of the pockets in his black alpaca coat was torn open. Taking a pin from his waistcoat, he proceeded to mend it, remarking, “It seems to me that that don’t look quite right for the Chief Magistrate of this Mighty Republic, Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Arriving at the shooting ground, Mr. Lincoln, looking down the field, said, “It seems to me, I discover the carcass of a colored gentleman down yonder,” and ordered the target placed so as to avoid accidents. The target was a board about six inches wide, and three feet long, with a black spot near each end. The rifle contained seven cartridges. Mr. Lincoln’s first shot was low, but the next hit the bullseye, and the other five were close around it. “Now,” says he, “we will let the inventor try it.” Being in almost daily practice, I naturally beat the President a little. “Well,” he said, “you are younger than I am, have a better eye, and a steadier nerve.”
The end of the board which the President had shot at was cut off by the Navy official, and handed to me when we parted on the steps of the White House. I kept it until 1883 when at the request of one of the staff of the Army and Navy Journal, it was sent to Springfield, Illinois, to be placed in the collection of relics.
The following evening Lincoln, having retained the rifle, went out to shoot again. He and Spencer, together with a clerk in the War Department, John Hay, did the firing. According to Hay, “This evening and yesterday evening an hour was spent by the President in shooting with Spencer’s new repeating rifle. A wonderful gun,

Author's sporting Boston Spencer .56-.46 is fitted with de luxe wood but uses some military parts in its assembly. Basic serial number is 8386, but number believed to be its place in "sporter" series is 7 on major parts. Set trigger is unusual accessory. Few other sporters, one other set trigger are known.

Author’s sporting Boston Spencer ,56-.46 is fitted with de luxe wood but uses some military parts in its assembly. Basic serial number is 8386, but number believed to be its place in “sporter” series is 7 on major parts. Set trigger is unusual accessory. Few other sporters, one other set trigger are known.
loading with absolutely contemptible simplicity and ease with seven balls & firing the whole readily and delib- erately in less than half a minute. The President made some pretty good shots. Spencer, the inventor, a quiet little Yankee who sold himself in relentless slavery to his idea for six weary years before it was perfect, did some splendid shooting. My eyes are gradually failing. I can scarcely see the target two inches wide at thirty yards.”
Hay reports the trio had some kibitzers absolutely fantastic in their repartee. “An irrepressible patriot came up and talked about his son John, who, when lying on his belly on a hilltop at Gettysburg, feeling the shot fly over him, like to lost his breath—felt himself puffing up like a toad—thought he would bust. Another, seeing the gun recoil slightly, said it wouldn’t do, too much powder: a good piece of audience should not rekyle; if it did at all, it should rekyle a little forrid.”
I have met shooting experts of this type in my own days on the range; they are a prolific breed.
The target board at which Lincoln fired, that was given to Spencer, was sent to General John A. Logan for that worthy’s collection of Civil War relics in the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. According to Miss Margaret A. Flint, Assistant State Historian (1961), “When the General John A. Logan Memorial Collec- tion was transferred from the Illinois Adjutant Gen- eral’s custody to this library in 1956 it was reported to contain such a relic. Unfortunately, we were never able to locate it or any information regarding it.”
Discovering this lost shingle would be a most interesting thing for collectors, as it might identify beyond all question precisely what rifle was used by Spencer in his shooting match with Lincoln. Was it a regular military rifle, of a type just being made and of which no actual deliveries had been accomplished to the United States until December of 1862? Or could it have been one of the very rare Spencer sporting rifles which were listed in the sales catalog in 1865 but which evidence suggests were actually in existence during the Boston production period? Suydam (Charles R. Suydam, The American Cartridge, 1960) says that the .56-.46, one of the few genuinely bottlenecked rimfires, was fired from Spencer sporting rifles and light carbines, using cartridges manufactured by the Spencer company. Sim- ilar ammunition was made by other manufacturers during the years 1862-1900.
Source for most Spencer sporting rifle information is Spencer’s 1866 catalog, but this is unclear. Though a light .44 carbine was pictured and offered for sale, none have as yet been found which are not early Hartford Spencers. Of the Boston rifles, made on the regular Spencer frame, taking the .56-46 which is a bottleneck adaptation of the big ,56-.56 case and dimensions, very few exist. They are of the same general form, and a careful measurement of his sporting rifle was made by collector C. Harald Sebenius of Altadena, California:
Bore measurement over lands...........443"
Number of grooves....................................6
Length of barrel, muzzle: chamber front .    24%"
Length of barrel to rear of chamber..........26"
Length of chamber....................................³A"
Chamber at rear, diameter of %" part .. .    .56"
Chamber at front, diameter of ³A" part . . .443" Overall length of rifle is 43%" or 44"
Receiver marked on top in three lines with: spencer repeating
RIFLE CO. BOSTON, MASS.
PAT^d MARCH 6, 1860 A similar specimen in the author’s collection is also a round 26-inch barrel (Spencer offered 28-inch and 30-inch, 50$ each inch additional extra). A unique single set trigger is fitted, appearing to be of Spencer design. (Another example of this Spencer trigger has come to light.) Pushing the back bar of the trigger sets it. The tip of the bar protrudes through the trigger itself and is fired by a light touch on this protruding tip of the set bar. The entire trigger then flips up under spring tension, knocking loose the sear to fire. The original Spencer back sight is a vertical bar with a sliding screw-locked peep hole block. One sight mounting screw cuts through the serial number, which is stamped on top of the receiver tang behind the breechblock, and the sight base completely obscures it. The first digit of the number is restamped a little out of line, thus: 8386, and appears to have been done at the factory. This suggests the receiver is one of those made
With what kind of rifle did Lincoln fire at the wood board? Was it the regular heavy .56-.56 military rifle with its somewhat cumbersome 30-inch barrel? Or might it have been the lighter, more elegantly finished sporting rifle, with better sights and the reduced “rekyl” of the lighter ,56-.46 cartridge? If the board could be found or a precisely scaled photograph of the board measured, some interesting facts as to the gun Spencer showed the President might come to light.
“. . . I took the rifle from its case and presented it to him,” Spencer wrote later. Buckeridge’s version uses the expression “cloth case.” This is unlikely, but not impossible. The habit of carrying arms in canvas or heavy duck cases was not well established until after the end of the War. It is doubtful if Spencer would have entrusted such an important “secret weapon” to the mercies of baggage porters and freight forwarders wrapped so insecurely as in a simple cloth case.
My opinion is, in view of Lincoln asking Spencer to disassemble the gun, and Spencer’s readily coming up with a screwdriver, that he had the rifle in a conventional wood or leather trunk box. It most likely was compartmented with spaces for ammunition and cleaning tools, and a screw driver and, if any cloth case was featured, he may have had the rifle further wrapped in a light flannelette or doeskin cloth like a sword cover. We have a hunch that Lincoln shot a sporting rifle,
Special Spencer sporting rear sight is unique pattern with these rare arms, does not have large disc peep so characteristic of sights of following decade. Gun is listed in 1866 catalog but is believed to date from early in the War. Flange on butt plate is end of loading tube which, turned aside, is pulled out to insert seven cartridges into magazine. Design was heavy, but foolproof. The loading tube (not shown) is carried in a recess in the stock, and inserted through the butt plate.
on the first 10,000 order of .56-.56 rifles for the Army; other specimens of this model bear widely spaced numbers, apparently not consecutive. The hammer of No. 8386 bears a “D” of the United States sub-inspector, somewhat burnished down as if refinished subsequent to stamping for acceptance. As a theory for the pro- duction of these sporting rifles, it seems logical that a few were put up on condemned United States actions which were not accepted by the inspector and thus gave Spencer an opportunity to try out the market with a sporting gun. On forestock, lever, breechblock, underside of barrel, and other parts is the tiny assembly or sub-serial number “7”. Numbers in the mid-250’s have been noted on these parts. The mid-barrel sight, instead of being a Lawrence elevating type, is a single range sporting notch made on a base cut to fill the slot for the elevating sight base. There is a small flat fore and aft of this slot for the Lawrence-type sight leaf spring. The cartridge for this arm was later listed as “,56-.46,” and actual specimens measure between .460 inches and .488 inches bullet diameter. This is a tight but not unrealistic squeeze down the barrel for the slightly hardened lead bullets of the old time cartridges.
Checking into the differences between the sporting rifle, first listed in 1865-66 but actually in existence as early as 1863, to judge by numbers, leads to a not unnatural but wild surmise.

one of the first Spencer had made on the .56-.56 production line. If so, could he have chosen No. 7 as his “lucky seven?” A photograph exists of the board, incised with a sharp point with the words “7 consecutive shots made by the President of the United States with a Spencer rifle at a distance of forty yards. Washington, D. C., August 18, 1863.” Until the board itself is located, formerly in the John A. Logan Collection in Springfield, Illinois, the mystery of what rifle Spencer gave the President will remain unsolved.

Other Evidence Favoring the Spencer

The heavy casualties at Chickamauga had sealed the value of the repeater in War. Under Wilder’s command and cooperating with the terrible fire of doubleshotted canister Parrott rifles at point-blank range, the Lightning Brigade had chopped a red valley through the Confederate ranks of Longstreet’s desperate, battlehardened veterans.
On Saturday, September 19, 1863, Van Cleve’s and Davis’s corps had been separated by Longstreet’s yelling “foot cavalry” who knifed between them with triumphant hurrahs, confident of victory. A portion of them had crossed a small field and charged toward a grove in which Wilder’s mounted infantry lay dismounted, quietly cuddling their deadly Spencers. Through the woods ran a drainage ditch five or six feet deep to carry off water of a nearby swamp. Wilder’s account follows:
As the rebels entered this field, in heavy masses fully exposed, the mounted infantry, with their seven-shooting Spencer rifles, kept up a continuous blast of fire upon them, while Lilly with his Indiana Battery, hurled through them double shotted canister from his ten-pounder rifles at less than three hundred yards. The effect was awful. Every shot seemed to tell. The head of the column, as it was pushed on by those behind, appeared to melt away or sink into the earth, for though continually moving it got no nearer. It broke at last, and fell back in great disorder. It was rallied and came on again, and with desperate resolution pushed through the solid fire to the ditch. Here, all who could get it took shelter. Instantly Lilly whirled two of his guns and poured right down the length of the ditch his horrible double canister. Hardly a man got out of it alive.
When the firing ceased, one could have walked for two hundred yards down that ditch on dead rebels, without ever touching the ground.
While Wilder did not claim that his brigade defeated Longstreet, he thought that 2,000 Confederates were killed and wounded in the immediate front he com- manded. Wilder, two hundred times under fire by that September, later said “At this point it actually seemed a pity to kill men so. They fell in heaps, and I had it in my heart to order the firing to cease to end the awful sight.”

Results of the Interview with Lincoln

The result of Spencer’s interview had been characterized as a highly successful one, and after that it is said that he made all the guns his company could turn out for the Union. The facts are somewhat different. Orders for Spencer arms amounted to 10,000, which number

Special Spencer sporting rear sight is unique pattern with these rare arms, does not have large disc peep so characteristic of sights of following decade. Gun is listed in 1866 catalog but is believed to date from early in the war. Flange on butt plate is end of loading tube which, turned aside, is pulled out to insert seven cartridges into magazine. Design was heavy, but foolproof. The loading tube (not shown) is carried in a recess in the stock, and inserted through the butt plate.

had been reduced by Holt and Owen to 7,500. At the price of $40 each, this contract was quite comparable to Springfield Rifle Muskets contracts for twice the number, and there were quite a few contractors who did not get additional orders until they had commenced to deliver in quantity on their original orders. The requirement of the rifle to arm the Sharpshooters had long passed and the need for the long gun was not so pressing, with increased production of the National Armory and the musket contractors, and the increase of special arms for mounted riflemen and other skir- mishers-type infantry. The need was for the new cavalry organized under direction of General Pleason- ton, and the most important thing in Spencer’s future was the record of the carbine tested by the McClellan Board at the Washington Arsenal in November of 1861. Now it was the cavalry that demanded the gun, and it was the Michigan troops with which the stubby Spencer carbine especially became identified.

The Model Adopted

The model adopted for the cavalry was 22 inches in the barrel, blued and casehardened, 3-groove rifling, and firing the .56-.56 cartridge. The caliber is often listed as .52, using the No. 56 Spencer rimfire cartridge. Bullet diameters of the round for this and the Spencer CW rifle listed by Suydam run: .535 inch, .551 inch, .541 inch, .555 inch, and .545 inch, indicating considerable leeway in tolerances. The earliest of this charge used a long, heavy one-ounce conical bullet resembling in ogive the U. S. Ml855 rifle minie ball and is evidently Spencer’s idea of a “calibre .58- inch metallic cartridge.” The carbine receiver top has the usual “Boston” marking. Added is a short sling bar on the left side of the receiver, based on a small plate let into the small of the stock, along which a sling ring slides freely for attaching the snaffle hook of the trooper’s cross-shoulder carbine sling. Carried this way, the carbine is inverted along the left side of the trooper when mounted, its muzzle down and forward underneath the leg, and the muzzle itself caught in a short leather socket to keep it from flopping around.
A special cartridge box was invented by Blakeslee to carry ten additional loaded Spencer magazines. Of leather over wood, six-sided, it was carried strapped on the trooper’s back and gave him a quick supply of 70 spare shots. Though the tubes were pre-loaded and therefore expendable, he probably had to do extra duty at camp if he was so careless as to lose them in a skirmish.
Michigan forces became famous with their Spencers. Though Wilson’s cavalry brigade adopted the Spencer carbine as their badge or emblem, many of the troopers carried the infantry rifle, to the extent that Wilder in 1864 when asked his opinion of the Spencer suggested that the rifle, which he deemed superior for mounted infantry, should be fitted with a sling ring to enable it to be carried like the carbine. Apparently the rifle was carried slung across the trooper’s back by means

Some Spencers had sling swivel of ordinary form mounted in toe of buttstock. Regular finish was linseed-oiled wood, casehardened frame, lock and hammer in mottled colors, and rust-blued barrel. Small work was usually brightly polished and heatblued. Burnside Rifle Co. of Providence made over 30,000 Spencer carbines in last days of war.

Some Spencers had sling swivel of ordinary form mounted in toe of buttstock. Regular finish was linseed-oiled wood, casehardened frame, lock and hammer in mottled colors, and rust-blued barrel. Small work was usually brightly polished and heatblued. Burnside Rifle Co. of Providence made over 30,000 Spencer carbines in last days of War.
of the swivel-fastened ordinary sling or, in more alert moments, balanced across the saddle bow across the knees. While the McClellan saddle lacked the lasso horn of the earlier prairie or Spanish saddle, over which frontiersmen sometimes slipped a double leather rifle loop, it had D rings to which the rifle could be thonged and jerked loose in an instant. Many of the Michigan regiments with the firepower of their Spencers proved equal to much more numerous Confederate units.
Headquarters Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac May 14, 1864
Mr. F. Cheney
Dear Sir:—Being in command of a Brigade of Cavalry which is armed throughout with the Spencer Carbine and Rifle, I take pleasure in testifying to their superiority over all other weapons. I am firmly of the opinion that 1500 men armed with the Spencer Carbine are more than a match for 2500 armed with any other firearm. I know this to be true from actual experiment.
Very respectfully &c.
G. A. Custer,
Brigadier General
In June, the general of the flowing locks got a chance to prove that his testimonial was in good faith:
New York Herald, June 2nd, 1864
Torbert’s Division.
As the fight waxed hottest, between two and three o’clock, Custer’s brigade of Michiganders was ordered in to assist Davies’ and Gregg’s brigades, who already had the enemy weakening, putting him to rout. This command is completely armed with Spencer rifles and the enemy would rather see the devil coming at them than these. As Custer marched up the road and dismounted his men, Davies opened a gap in his line to make way for the Michigan brigade. The line was immediately joined and a furious assault commenced. It was just in the nick of time, for at the same moment, a brigade of fresh troops reinforced the enemy. But nothing could withstand the terrible volume of iron hail which our boys now poured into their ranks. Back they went, South Carolinians and all, for a mile and a half, with fearful loss. At five o’clock the battle was ended, and we had the field. Three of our brigades had whipped their whole corps.
The Confederate estimation of the Spencer was quite as flattering, all things considered, as the Yankee approbation. An editorial in the Richmond Sentinel, December 8, 1864, after remarking on the general issue of breechloaders to the Union cavalry, and especially citing the Spencer rifles and carbines, went on to say:
The captures which we have made from the enemy embrace a large number of these Spencer rifles. It would be eminently desirable to arm our cavalry with them and thus remove that inequality between the opposing lines which told so heavily against us in the cavalry encounters in the past campaign. A practical difficulty exists, however, which we are informed has not yet been removed. We call it to the attention of our Ordnance Department, that the ingenuity which has won so many triumphs in obviating other difficulties may perform a similar service in this case. The Spencer rifle cannot be used with any cartridge yet furnished to our soldiers. The cartridges are put up in copper cases of peculiar mechanism, which we have not yet undertaken to make. Hence our valuable captures are stacked away in our armories, as so much dead weight. The thing needed is the manufacture of cartridges for the Spencer rifle ... A large number of (the best breechloaders)
Resplendent in “Jeff Davis” cap and shoulder scales, sergeant of Federal cavalry posed in 1864 for Q.M. Corps picture holding issue Spencer carbine. Snaffle hook snapped to ring on sling bar, hung carbine from shoulder while trooper was in the saddle. Muzzle of carbine rested in leather socket strapped to McClellan saddle rig behind leg; was swung free with off hand when dismounting or mounting.
Pair of Boston Spencers owned by John Wilkes Booth and used by him at time of Lincoln murder. Ironic twist in Spencer story was capture of Jeff Davis by Michigan trooper armed with Spencer carbine. Booth guns are now in Ford’s Theatre museum.

Resplendent in "Jeff Davis" cap and shoulder scales, sergeant of Federal cavalry posed in 1864 for Q.M. Corps picture holding issue Spencer carbine. Snaffle hook snapped to ring on sling bar, hung carbine from shoulder while trooper was in the saddle. Muzzle of carbine rested in leather socket strapped to McClellan saddle rig behind leg; was swung free with off hand when dismounting or mounting.

the world has yet produced, are in our possession, but idle for want of cartridges. So we are informed by cavalrymen— will the Ordnance Department please to take notice?”
This wholly gratuitous piece of scribbling did nothing to cheer up harassed and much-overworked General J. G. Rains, CSA. As superintendent of the Confederate powder mill at Augusta and Chief of the Nitre and Mining Bureau, he had enough to do in trying to supply the want of ordinary combustibles for muzzleloading arms. Collecting of night soil from which to render nitrogen salts for making gunpowder was but one of his chores; another was the calling in from the hills of every copper “worm” he could find. No modern “revenooer” was ever so diligent in seeking out the sources of untaxed beverages as was Rains and his men in calling upon the patriotism of Southern hill planters to give up their copper coil stills. The precious metal was needed, not for cartridge cases, too costly a luxury for the South, but simple copper percussion caps. A hundred could be punched from the same metal that would make one Spencer cartridge. If the South could manage to capture a depot of Spencer ammunition, the issue of the rifles would be quite worthwhile. But though they were the best the world had produced, they lay idle for want of raw, red copper—precious ore of Mars that is found in many places, but most economically mined in areas controlled by the North. A cartridgeloading plant was finally begun by the Confederacy but too late to affect the outcome of the War.

Influence on Tactics

The issue of breechloaders like the Spencer gave rise to several tactics which were new to warfare. Among them was the trick of firing a volley, waiting until the enemy began a charge, then mowing them down. Another “modem” tactic was moving or assault fire, which Custer tried when he went between Davies’ and Gregg’s brigades and moved upon the South Carolinians.
The repeaters lent an aura of invincibility to the regiments which carried them; without them they lost heart. “The 7th New Hampshire had so deadly a fire poured at them that they broke and fell back in confusion” reported the New York Tribune of the Union defeat at Olustee, Florida, in March of 1864. “Dissatisfaction had been created among the men by depriving them of the Spencer repeating rifle and by issuing, in lieu of this formidable weapon, Springfield muskets in a damaged condition. Unable to protect themselves with such guns, one wing of the regiment gave way and could not be rallied, while the other wing, which still retained the repeating rifle maintained its position until the ammunition was exhausted, when it too was obliged to fall back.” As the Confederate correspondent in the Richmond paper indicated, not all the Union troops armed with the Spencer were invincible: “A large number of the best the world has produced are in our possession.”
The Spencer did not win the War; on the other hand its contribution to the Union cause was substantial. Up to December 31, 1865, the Ordnance Department had bought 77,181 Spencer carbines, in addition to the 1,500 bought by Massachusetts (probably rifles) and the tens of thousands bought by other State troops. Of these arms, at least 30,496 were received under a contract issued to the Burnside Rifle Company in June,
1864, for 35,000 Spencer carbines. The Tremont Street Armory was taxed to capacity, and the Bum- side Company expanded their production. These are marked on top of the frame with the words, model 1865 and spencer repeating rifle/patented
MARCH 6, 1860/MANUFD AT PROV. R. I. BY BURNSIDE rifle co. and the serial number. The Burnside Spencer had a 20-inch barrel, and the new .56-.50 rimfire cartridge, a bottleneck case of .50 caliber. Bullet diameters measured by Suydam range from .476 inches to .528 inches but the head of the case forward of the rim is more regular: .556 inches to .558 inches: they would all fit the Burnside Spencer chamber. These carbines were delivered too late for use in the War, but received a shaking out in the Indian campaigns which followed.
The last use of a Spencer carbine in anger was by a play actor at Ford’s Theater. Booth used a tiny pistol to do the deed, but in his secondary armament, cached here and there should he be holed up and have to fight off pursuit, were at least two Boston Spencer carbines. They are now preserved and are still in good serviceable condition. One was carried by Booth when he was shot at Garrett’s bam; it has a thong tied to the butt swivel and around the barrel to carry it by. The other was picked up at Lloyd’s Tavern where Booth had hidden it.
There is a recent and possibly well founded belief that War Secretary Stanton had much to do with the death of Lincoln; that he put Booth up to it. The actor was truly an actor in a play staged by others,
some have it. Ironically, the weapons which Booth received, cavalry Spencer carbines, with which to defend himself were the very arms which Stanton had been too busy to witness being fired in August of 1863. Verily, as the Chief Executive then remarked, “They do pretty much as they have a mind to over at the War Office.”
The corollary incident looms less bright in history, for it was a quieter sort of activity: the capture of President Jefferson Davis. For many years in the G.A.R. room of the Chicago Public Library was preserved a Spencer carbine said to have been carried by a Michigan trooper on the occasion of the Confederate President’s apprehension.
In the 1865 Model a peaceful note was intruded into the mechanism. Quaker inventor Edward M. Stabler of Maryland invented a turning lever to cut off the magazine and stop the “hose like” discharge of cartridges. Placed before the trigger, it impeded the move- ment of the breechblock enough to keep the following cartridge from popping forward to be chambered as the lever was closed. Turning the Spencer repeater into a single shooter had its advantage, for it permitted loading the chamber shot by shot, holding the full magazine in reserve.

After the War

The denouement of Spencer and his rifle story came after the War, as Spencer had created by his diligent production so much War surplus that he put himself out of business. By 1869 the firm was placed up for auction, and its assets sold to Oliver Winchester. The big Spencer breech could hold a .52-inch bullet; it was cumbersome when adapted directly by bottleneck cartridge to any smaller round. The Henry rifle could not conveniently be adapted up to .50 or larger, but it was a dandy saddle rifle in a straight .44 case. So the Henry prospered in sporting rifle sales, having made but 10,-000 during the War, while Spencer, making 10 times as many, had produced himself out of the market. Spencer continued with his other mechanical interests. He founded the Billings & Spencer Company, which is still in business, and tried several flyers again in the arms field, with Sylvester Roper’s unsuccessful shotgun-rifle combination, and later on with his own slide-action guns and rifles. Mechanically successful, one was used by Annie Oakley, but sales were not achieved and again he failed. He also adapted his slide action mechanism for the Lee box magazine in the late 1880’s for military purposes, but the Spencer-Lee rifles were built only in prototype, and never produced.
Christopher Miner Spencer died in 1922. His work in machine tools has produced happiness and prosperity for thousands in New England industries, but he is best known for his death-dealing “horizontal shot-tower,” Spencer’s Seven-Shooting Rifle.