CHAPTER 14. That Damn Yankee Rifle

In sunny California a lady built a house. To San Jose in 1881 after the death of her husband and only child, came Mrs. Sarah Winchester, wife of William Wirt Winchester, son of gun company founder, Oliver. Her husband had been secretary and vice president of “Winchester.” In San Jose she bought a modest eight-room house, and without rhyme or reason began at once to add rooms and remodel. Thirty years later she died leaving a crew of 16 or more carpenters busily adding on or tearing down portions of a structure which had grown to the enormous total of 160 rooms. Says Williamson in his book Winchester:
Spread over six acres, within an estate of 160 acres, the house is a hodgepodge. In one room inside windows are barred, outside ones are not. There are screens on blank walls; exterior water faucets extend beneath second story windows; a balcony or skylight may be found in the middle of a room. Narrow passages and stairs with steps one or two inches high lead from one room and one level to another. Some stairways lead to blank walls, others open out into space. There is a gas light operated by an electric push button, and one room has four tiled fireplaces and four hot air registers . . .
There is no adequate explanation of Mrs. Winchester’s actions. The legend grew that she was a spiritualist and that she was told by the spirits that she would live as long as her house was not completed. An alternate version is that she was afraid of being haunted by the ghosts of individuals shot by Winchester guns and ammunition.

Origin of Winchester

Born in the furnaces of conflict, the New Haven Arms Company (renamed Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866) grew to become a part of the American Legend. Bought by Union soldiers with hardearned private funds, at prices equivalent to a couple of months’ pay, the Henry repeater, forerunner of the Winchester, was liked but not much by the Southrons. Major Joel W. Cloudman, 1st D. C. Cavalry, all of whom were armed with Henrys, wrote to Oliver Winchester telling him a captured Southerner had protested, “Give us anything but that damned Yankee rifle that can be loaded on Sunday and fired all week.”
Cloudman also wrote of an action of the 1st D. C. (Baker’s Cavalry) on August 25, 1864, near Ream’s Station, where his unit was dismounted and withstood a charge of Rebels, and “easily repulsed the foe, while the infantry were broken and swept from their well constructed breastworks.” The later history of the War is sprinkled with such anecdotes.
Popular in the border states, the Henry was bought by Colonel Netter’s Kentucky Volunteers. Near Owensboro, Kentucky, 15 Henry-armed men on a scout repulsed 240 Confederates, wrote P. K. Williams and W. W. Gardner to Winchester: “They were attacked in an open lane where there was no shelter, in March 1863. These must have been among the earliest Henrys to be issued, for production was by no means able to equal the demand. Owing to their capacity to main- tain a rapid and continuous fire, they successfully re- pulsed and drove from the field the entire Rebel force.”
Beatty recalls in his diary on March 23, 1863 that, “Colonels Wilder and Funkhauser called. We had just disposed of a bottle of wine when Colonel Harker made his appearance, and we entered forthwith upon another. Colonel Wilder expects to accomplish a great work with his mounted infantry. He is endeavoring to arm them with the Henry rifle, a gun which, with a slight twist of the wrist, will throw sixteen bullets in almost that many seconds.”

The Henry Rifle

This prodigy of small arms, the Henry rifle, was the first really successful rifle to be manufactured by Oliver Fisher Winchester.
All Henrys had the hand-loop lever extension of the trigger guard, to work the gun and fire as fast as the hand could be flicked and the trigger touched off. The 16-shot magazine, and the blunt, heavy “.44 Henry Flat” bullets, in rapid fire made it the best repeater of the War. Approximately 10,000 Henrys were made,
1,731 bought officially at a cost of $63,953.26 by the Ordnance Department; the rest were used by soldiers rich enough to buy them privately.
Priced at $40, a Henry cost a lot of money to a private soldier. This high capital investment may have accounted for some of the sentiment about arms which Southrons felt the Yankees possessed. It was generally realized that during the War anyone wanting guns could go up to Nashville and buy all he wanted for Con- federate gold. Even the Yankee soldiers, the Rebs somehow believed, might be induced to sell their guns. “Are you not afraid of going to War?” a Southern countryman was asked. “No,” he replied, “if I should see a Yankee with his gun leveled and looking right at me, I would draw out my pocket-book and ask him what

“Damned Yankee rifle” loaded on Sunday and fired all week was Henry M1860, first successful rifle built by Winchester. Official Records pictured gun, tabulated over 1,700 bought by U.S. of 10,000 produced to War’s end.

he would take for his gun, and the fight would end right there.” Through Marginalia, An Army Note Book,1864 is more anecdotal than hard-case history, this sketch illustrates an attitude of the times.
Pride of possession in his purchase was revealed by one of Sherman’s soldiers who wrote in his journal on May 11, 1864, “I got a Henry rifle—a 16 shooter— yesterday ... I gave 35 dollars, all the money I had, for it ... I am glad I could get it. They are good shooters and I like to think I have so many shots in reserve.” Ten months later he noted “I think the Johnnys are getting rattled; they are afraid of our repeating rifles. They say we are not fair, that we have guns that we load up on Sunday and shoot all the rest of the week. This I know, I feel a good deal more confidence in myself with a 16 shooter in my hands than
I used to with a single shot rifle.” (Quoted from Oscar
C. Winther, With Sherman to the Sea).
In Letters from Lee’s Army the Southern point of view was summed up well, “We never did secure the Winchester (Henry) whose repeating qualities made the enemy’s cavalry so formidable toWards the end of the War.”

Exploits of the Henry

  Formidable was a mild word for it. Sales boosters, firearms merchants, company agents, all told of the Henry’s remarkable firepower. It was proclaimed by a large broadside of the Henry, “which could be obtained from Jno. W. Brown, Gen’l Agt, Columbus, Ohio,” that sixty shots per minute could be fired. Henry’s Patent Repeating Rifle was said to be “The most effective weapon in the world.” Considering that it was also a good deer gun, agent Brown conceded that “For a House or Sporting Arm it has No Equal.” But Ohio was full of Copperheads, and conflict between Southron and Yankee stalked the streets, pistol in hand. Agent Brown described the power: “Penetration at 100 yards is 8 inches; at 400 yards 5 inches; and it carries with force sufficient to kill at 1,000 yards.” Set in bold face type was the clincher: “A resolute man, armed with one of these Rifles, particularly if on horseback, CANNOT BE CAPTURED.”
Putting this claim to the test, Kentuckian James M. Wilson saved his skin and created a legendary exploit of the War, good also for sales propaganda for Win chester. Wilson, Captain of Company M, 12th Kentucky (U.S.) Cavalry, was described as “an unconditional Union man, living in a strongly disloyal section of Kentucky.” He had been threatened by his neighbors:

Majority of Henrys made saw war use, from Copperheads alleged to have "total of 30,000" stashed away in Chicago, to this specimen inscribed to show use by Fifth Tennessee Cavalry. Gun now owned by Thomas Suter of Colorado.

Majority of Henrys made saw War use, from Copperheads alleged to have “total of 30,000” stashed away in Chicago, to this specimen inscribed to show use by Fifth Tennessee Cavalry. Gun now owned by Thomas Suter of Colorado.
In consequence of this, Captain Wilson had fitted up a log crib across the road from his front door as a sort of arsenal, where he had his Henry rifle, Colt’s revolver, etc. One day, while at home dining with his family, seven mounted guerrillas rode up, dismounted, and burst into his dining room and commenced firing upon him with revolvers. The attack was so sudden that the first shot struck a glass of water his wife was raising to her lips, breaking the glass. Several other shots were fired without effect, when Captain Wilson sprang to his feet, exclaiming. “For God’s sake, gentlemen, if you wish to murder me, do not do it at my own table in the presence of my family.”
This caused a parley, resulting in their consent that he might go outdoors to be shot. The moment he reached his front door, he sprang for his cover, and his assailants commenced firing at him. Several shots passed through his hat, and more through his clothing, but none took effect upon his person. He thus reached his cover and seized his Henry rifle, turned upon his foes, and in five shots killed five of
them; the other two sprang for their horses. As the sixth man threw his hand over the pommel of his saddle, the sixth shot took off four of his fingers; notwithstanding this he got his saddle, but the seventh shot killed him; then starting out, Captain Wilson killed the seventh man with the eighth shot.
Wilson’s exhibition persuaded the Kentucky authorities that the gun was a good one for War; in token of this feat they armed his company with Henrys. Less flattering is this anecdote to the vaunted Southern chivalry which not only was composed strictly of cen- taurs, but of impeccable marksmen, as well. To blaze around in Wilson’s front parlour and not get the cap- tain when firing at drawing-room distances speaks poorly for the shooting eye of Rebel Kentuckians.
By one of those wry quirks of fate which so often
SIXTY SHOTS

HENRY'S PATENT

First class publicity, worthy of Winchester Public Relations writer of today, stimulated popular demand for fast-acting 16-shooter; began to shape up "western" image of lever action types because of heavy distribution in the area west of Appalachian mountains. Warlike capability is accented in ad poster for Henry which became No. 1 American sporting arm in era after war.

The Most Effective Weapon in the World.
This Rifle can be discharged 10 times without loading or taking down from the shoulder, or even loosing aim. It is also slung in such a manner, that either on horse or on foot, it can be Instantly Used, without taking the strap from the shoulder.

Sling for Henry was hooked to fixed loop on side of barrel-magazine assembly and to loop swivel based in side of stock. Rifle was carried by mounted men across back, instead of by usual carbine sling with saddle boot for muzzle

For a House or Sporting Arm, it has do Equal;
IT IS ALWAYS LOADED AND ALWAYS READY.
The size now made is 44-100 inch bore, 24 inch barrel, and car- ries a conical ball 32 to the pound. The penetration at 100 yards is 8 inches; at 400 yards 6 inches; and it carries with force suffi- cient to kill at 1,000 yards.
A resolute man, armed with one of these Stifles, particular- ly if on horseback, CANNOT BB CAPTURED.
"W. particularly commend it for A«*r U*M. .» the met e«ecliw arm for picket and ridett* duty, and to all our . itiiwn» In neeludud plaoo, aa a protection agaio»t guerilla attack, and robber lea. A man armed will, one of thr« R,fle., can lo*f and di.eb.rgc one .hot .wry .econd to that ho i. ct,ua! to a company ercry minute, a regiment .eery ten minute., a brigade ercrr half boor, and » dir mum every
First class publicity, worthy of Winchester Public Relations writer of today, stimulated popular de- mand for fast-acting 16-shooter; began to shape up “western” image of lever action types because of heavy distribution in the area west of Appalachian mountains. Warlike capability is accented in ad poster for Henry which became No. 1 American sporting arm in era after War.

Sling for Henry was hooked to fixed loop on side of barrel-magazine assembly and to loop swivel based in side of stock. Rifle was carried by mounted men across back, instead of by usual carbine sling with saddle boot for muzzle.

Side position of Henry sling fittings are more clearly seen in this left side elevation. Brass frame was easily machined, but production was slow and not until 1863 were deliveries fairly regular

happen when sales managers are more ingenious than they are honest, battle accounts of the Henry’s strongest competitor, the seven-shot Spencer, appeared in the 1865 Winchester catalog to boost his own guns. The incident is ironic because instead of getting the Henrys which he applied for, Brigadier General John T. Wilder was supplied with Spencer carbines. Wilder’s Brigade distinguished itself in battle with the Spencers, but the Winchester people, perhaps expressing a sales aggres- siveness which caused the firm to triumph over their competitors, stole Spencer’s thunder for their own puff sheet. Wilder had in fact first applied to New Haven for weapons:
HQ. 1ST BRIGADE, 5TH DIV., 14TH ARMY CORPS
Murfreesboro, Tenn., March 20th, 1863 Proprietors New Haven Arms Co.,
Gentlemen:
At what price will you furnish me nine hundred of your “Henry's Rifles,” delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, without ammunition, with gun slings attached? Two of my regiments, now mounted, have signified their willingness to purchase these arms, at their own expense, if they do not cost more than has been represented to them. My two other regiments will be mounted soon, and will, doubtless, go into the same measures. It is of course desirable to get them at as low figures as possible, as the men are receiving from the gov- ernment only thirteen dollars per month. How much addi- tional expense would it be to have an extra spiral spring for each gun, to replace any that may be broken, or when worn out?
You will please afford the desired information at your earliest convenience, and oblige,
Yours respectfully,
J. T. WILDER Col. Commanding
Though Winchester published Wilder’s letter, the firm was unable to supply so large a number as 900 in the short time available. Only 53 employees were at work during the last half of 1863, a drop of 15 hands since the firm started up in 1860. By January,
1863, Williamson (Harold F. Williamson, Winchester) estimates that 1,500 rifles had been made and delivered, produced during the preceding seven months. After
1863, production was stepped up about 25 per cent, from about 215 rifles monthly to about 260. At this rate, between 200 and 300 rifles monthly, it appears Winchester was unable to supply Wilder’s order, and the Spencer salesman stepped in and took it. Wilder’s Brigade did excellent service with the Spencer, but because his report used the non-specific term “armed with the breech-loading repeating rifle,” it was grist for Winchester salesmen. Perhaps the Winchester company believed they “owned” Wilder’s report on the Spencer —by 1875, when Winchester used the famous letter of Wilder in advertising, they had absorbed the Spencer Company.
One regiment more realistically reporting on its full complement of Henry rifles was Colonel Lafayette C. Baker’s 1st Washington, D.C. Cavalry. It was the only regiment of the Army of the Potomac so well equipped. A single battalion raised in the District of Columbia for special duty under command of Colonel L. C. Baker, provost marshal of the War Department, formed the nucleus of this regiment, whose work for Secretary Stanton resembled activities of the “Gestapo.” It was familiarly known as “Baker’s Mounted Rangers.” Formed for the military defense of the Capital, it was employed as a mounted police force, the “terror of evil doers,” quoth Baker’s memoirs, United States Secret Service. Writing in 1890, after Winchester had tri- umphed and Spencer gone under, Baker chose to beat a dead horse in his praises: “After having witnessed the effectiveness of this weapon (the Henry Rifle), one is not surprised at the remark said to have been made by the guerrilla chief, Mosby, after an encounter with some of our men, that ‘he did not care for the common gun, or for Spencer’s seven shooter, but as for these guns, that they could wind up on Sunday, and shoot all the week, it was useless to fight against them.’ ”
The 1st D.C. Cavalry was attached to General Kautz’s cavalry division on a raid in May, 1863. It was one of the earliest engagements in which about 800 Maine enlistees fought. These Down-Easterners had enlisted under the assurance they were destined for active combat, and they had been simmering under their relatively peaceful duty status around Washington. “At half-past two o’clock on the afternoon of the 7th, he . . . struck the Weldon Railroad just in time to intercept a body of Rebel troops on their way to Petersburg. A thunderbolt from a clear sky could hardly have been more astounding to the enemy ... In an incredibly short time the action was over, the enemy was whipped, the railroad was cut, the public buildings were in flames, and the gallant Kautz was again on his march, with some sixty prisoners in his train . . . The bravery of the men and the efficiency of the sixteen shooters, were put to the test . . . Some of the prisoners said they thought we must have had a whole army, from the way the bullets flew. One lieutenant asked if we loaded up over night and then fired all day. He

Flobert bulleted-breech cap .22 used in "saloon pistol" of 1845 was predecessor of cartridge which made Henry rifle practical. French design was known to Horace Smith, inventor who had hand in evolution of perfected Winchester-built Henry Civil War rifle. Flobert gun shown had rib on hammer face to ensure complete ignition of inside priming by denting entire diameter of cartridge base.

Side position of Henry sling fittings are more clearly seen in this left side elevation. Brass frame was easily machined, but production was slow and not until 1863 were deliveries fairly regular.
said he thought, by the way the bullets came into the bridge, they must have been fired by the basketful.” Kautz’ command continued its raiding perambulations in the Valley. Approaching Petersburg, Virginia, three days later, the six mounted companies of the 1st
D.C. Cavalry trotted down the Jerusalem Turnpike. Lieutenant Colonel Conger, commanding, ordered Major Curtis to dismount his battalion and charge the enemy’s works as infantry. This was not an unusual request, as the 1st Dee-Cee were organized as “mounted infantry,” whose use of the horse was to convey the trooper to the scene of battle, after which he would fight on foot.
The troopers moved out, their Henrys at the ready, every fourth man holding the horses. The battalion moved steadily forward, firing rapidly as they advanced. It was one of history’s earliest effective uses of the storm trooper and moving assault fire so important to battlefield tactics of the modem “human sea” War. The Confederate position was overran by the walking horse-soldiers. They then discovered the defending force, behind breastworks, had been three times their number. “With the common arm,” Baker remarked in describing this victory, “This would hardly have been possible. Some of the prisoners said, ‘Your rapid firing confused our men; they thought the devil helped you, and it was of no use to fight.’ ” Henrys on the defensive were powerful, too. Some of Baker’s men attacked a community south of Washington known as Cox’s Mills. A slight breastwork had been thrown up on a rise commanding a bridge. Rebel horse was sighted, and the Dee Ceers formed behind the breastwork:

“A heavy force of mounted rebels had crossed the bridge, and with wild yells was charging up the hill, outnumbering our men two to one. On, on they came, expecting an easy victory. Coolly our men waited. Not a shot was fired till they were within easy range. Then a few volleys from the sixteen shooters sent them back in confusion. A second time they charged, with the same result. This time they did not return.”

The story of a few men prevailing against great odds was the rule when Henry repeaters were on the smaller side, and then-conventional single-shot muzzle-loaders the equipment of the larger force. In the incident at Cox’s Mills, Baker’s boys were later surrounded, the Confederates having got into their baggage train and dressed in Union uniforms as a ruse. But when the Henrys had a fair chance, they won out as long as the ammunition lasted. The 1st D. C.’s report to General Dyer, when the latter was Chief of Ordnance in 1865, is of special interest in view of the battles listed in which Henry rifles took part:
HEADQUARTERS 1ST D. C. CAVALRY In the field before Richmond, Va.
January 20th, 1865 Major Genl A. B. Dyer, Chief of Ordnance Sir:
In connection with the accompanying report, I would beg leave to make the following remarks in regard to the merits and demerits of Henry’s Repeating Rifle, as an arm for the cavalry soldier.
My regiment has been fully armed with these rifles, ever since their first organization, which was in June, 1863. The rifles now in use in my command are the same that were issued to us at the time of our organization, and since that time they have been in constant use, most of the time in active service in the field, and they are now with a very few exceptions, as serviceable and efficient as they were when they were placed in the hands of the regiment. These rifles have been well and thoroughly tested in the follow- ing battles and raids during the last summer campaign:
General Kautz’s first raid in the month of May.
Battle at White’s Bridge, on the 8th of May.
Gen. Kautz’s second raid in Southern Virginia in the month of May. An engagement with the enemy near Fort Pride on the Bermuda front on the 1st of June.
The first attack on Petersburg on the 16th of June.
Gen. Wilson’s raid in Southern Virginia in the month of June and July.
The battle at Roanoke Bridge on the 27th of June.
The first battle at Ream’s Station on the 29th of June.
The first battle at Deep Bottom on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of July.
At the battle on the Weldon Railroad on the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of August.
The battle at Ream’s Station on the 25th of August.
The affair at Sycamore Church on the 16th of September.
Engagement on the Darbytown Road near Richmond on the 7th of October.
From the experience I have had with this rifle, in the engagements above mentioned, and in numerous other affairs and skirmishes on the picket lines, I have no hesitation in saying that I consider it one of the most effective weapons now in use in the Army.
The remarkable rapidity and accuracy with which the gun can be discharged, renders it an invaluable weapon to the Army. Under ordinary circumstances, I believe it utterly impossible to make a successful charge on troops armed with them. At the battle of Ream’s station on the 25th of August, repeated attempts were made by the enemy in large num- bers to charge a position held by my regiment (they being dismounted) and at each attempt they were repulsed with heavy loss. On one occasion there were several officers of high rank from the Cavalry Corps and the 2nd Army Corps
present, and noticed the destructive effect of my fire upon the enemy. But notwithstanding my high opinion of this arm when in the hands of dismounted men, I do not think it a suitable weapon for cavalry. I consider it too heavy; the barrel is also too long for the mounted service; the coil spring used in the magazine is also liable in the cavalry to become foul with sand and mud, and this, for the time being, renders the arm unserviceable. I do not think they get out of repair any more easily than most of the carbines now in use in the Army.
They carry with great accuracy; in target practice I have ascertained that an ordinary marksman can put two balls out of the three inside a ring two feet in diameter at a dis- tance of from six to seven hundred yards.
For the cavalry service I prefer arms of calibre .44 in preference to those of larger calibre.
Very respectfully, your ob’t servant,
J. S. BAKER,
Maj. Comd’g Reg’t
This lengthy endorsement, which may have cost him no more than the gift of a rifle, was one of many Oliver Winchester obtained. General Kautz summed up his opinion of the Dee Cee’rs by saying:

“The 1st District of Columbia cavalry was in my command during the past year, and was exceedingly efficient; and had the discipline of the regiment been in proportion to the arm they carried, which is the ‘Henry rifle,’ the efficiency of the regiment would have been still greater. The valuable service which the regiment performed was, in the main, due to the superiority of the arm they carried.”

And in spite of an exposed magazine spring and consequent failures in service, the superiority of the Henry was directly due to the cartridge which it used.
Flobert bulleted-breech cap .22 used in “saloon pistol” of 1845 was predecessor of cartridge which made Henry rifle practical. French design was known to Horace Smith, in- ventor who had hand in evolution of perfected Winchester-built Henry Civil War rifle. Flobert gun shown had rib on hammer face to ensure complete ignition of inside priming by denting entire diameter of car- tridge base.
While B. Tyler Henry receives main credit for the big .44 shell his rifle fired, to Horace Smith of Massa- chusetts Arms Company and his friend Dan Wesson go some of the credit. And the credit for the inspiration goes to a virtually unknown French armurier, Flobert.

Louis Flobert

Louis Nicholas Auguste Flobert is a man little recorded in the annals of firearms inventors, though his name is among the best known of all—his last name, that is, for his first is never mentioned. Pollard in A History of Firearms, speaks of his invention of the metallic cartridge as early as 1836, making him a contemporary of Lefaucheux. But Blanch (A History of Guns) dates him 1847 and damns him with faint praise, saying “even if he did not invent” the metallic cartridge. Flobert’s date is more correctly set by the Swiss gun writer Captain Rudolph Schmidt, who sets it at “1845,” seemingly logical as Flobert is listed as having exhibited “muskets, rifles, and pistols” of his de- sign at the London Great Exhibition in 1851.
But the catalog does not describe these arms, and gives Flobert’s address as 3 Rue Racine, apparently incorrect; nor does it give his full name.
For a man who was ignored, his designs swept the gun world like a storm. Gunsmiths in Paris, Liege, Suhl, and even in the Connecticut Valley, were soon turning out Flobert-design arms, mostly small-caliber rook rifles or target or “saloon” pistols. I have heard glib gun dealers, trying to peddle junk, inform their gullible customers that the “saloon pistol or rifle” was designed for use in saloons, to be used for impromptu

Cased gunmaker’s display set is in white, unfinished, ready for finishing to customer’s order. Set includes Flobert pistol of 1845 and Lefaucheux pinfire of type identical to those sold by Marcellus Hartley during Civil War in New York store. Set typifies contemporaneous dating of Floberts, pinfires, and regular percussion pistols in period of rapid evolution from which emerged perfected U.S. cartridge designs of Smith and B. Tyler Henry. Case shown from Sig Shore, Chicago, col- lection.
they were “early Smith & Wesson single shots.” It is possible these arms are the Floberts to which the deposition of Sarah Allen refers. Yet this brief allusion furnishes the missing link between the rimfire cartridge of the partners Smith and Wesson, and the European progenitors, Flobert and, one suspects, even Houillier.

Cased gunmaker's display set is in white, unfinished, ready for finishing to customer's order. Set includes Flobert pistol of 1845 and Lefaucheux pinfire of type identical to those sold by Marcellus Hartley during Civil War in New York store. Set typifies contemporaneous dating of Floberts, pinfires, and regular percussion pistols in period of rapid evolution from which emerged perfected U.S. cartridge designs of Smith and B. Tyler Henry. Case shown from Sig Shore, Chicago, collection

Louis Flobert was born in Paris in 1819. He died in the town of Gagny (Seine-et-Oise Departement) in 1894. With whom or where he served his apprentice- ship is not known. Presumably he was articled to a master gunmaker until his 21st birthday, as was the custom. Then he may have sought employment in either his master’s shop or in another, working as a journeyman. Young Flobert’s name first appears in print in his 25th year in the Paris City Directory as “armurier, 6 Rue Racine,” between the Boulevard St. Michel and the Place de l’Odeon. He must have been working on his breech-loading gun at the time, but his

First Flobert concept was to use percussion cap much like ordinary type, flared at back to support it, with ball loaded from muzzle. Design shown has hooked hammer face to pull cap free after force of explosion bulges it out into cuts of hooks. Idea was patented 17 July, 1846, No. 3589 in Paris. Second idea to evolve (inset cut) was regular drawn metallic cartridge of modern form, charged with black powder. Though shaped with a rim, case had fulminate across entire base for special Flobert ridge striker. A ridge striker instead of firing pin is used today in Gevarm semiauto rifles .22. Flobert cartridge patent was filed 20 July 1849 and issued 4 October that

shooting matches to settle wagers. The speaker seems to have confused the sober English game of darts played in the pub, for an anglicization of “salon,” a room or chamber; literally, “pistolet de salon,” or shooting gallery pistol.
The “saloon” in which Flobert’s arms were used was usually such a pretentious shooting emporium as that of the celebrated gunmaker Gastinne Renette, at Rond Point au Champs Elysees. Here Paris gallants could repair of an afternoon to fire ten meters at steel sheet profiles of a dandy in top hat and tails; practice for the duel.
Flobert’s arms took the form of subcaliber or practice pistols for the deadly business of defending one’s honor, or that of one’s lady, on the Continent.
His arms, imported by Hartley, had a vogue ante- bellum, and doubtless some dashing Southern cavalry officer owed his unerring aim with his Richmond- made carbine, to practice with a “Flobert.” Following the War, Flobert-System smallbore breechloaders sup- planted the caplock plain American rifle in the hands of the people, just as his metallic cartridge conception, matured through the improvements of Horace Smith and Dan Wesson, had supplanted the muzzle-loader.
Horace Smith is recorded as having manufactured Flobert-type pistols in 1851 and 1852. According to Williamson this fact was brought out “In The Matter of the Application Sarah E. Allen, Executive, for the Extension of Letters Patent issued to Ethan Allen, Etc.”, a brief on file in the United States Patent Office. The statement is interesting; missing are known ex- amples of pistols to corroborate this declaration, at least, of obvious Flobert principle. Recently discovered examples of a single-shot pistol having butt frame and other characteristics have led the owners to suppose

First Flobert concept was to use percussion cap much like ordinary type, flared at back to support it, with ball loaded from muzzle. Design shown has hooked hammer face to pull cap free after force of explosion bulges it out into cuts of hooks. Idea was patented 17 July, 1846, No. 3589 in Paris. Second idea to evolve (inset cut) was regular drawn metallic cartridge of modern form, charged with black powder. Though shaped with a rim, case had fulminate across entire base for special Flobert ridge striker. A ridge striker instead of firing pin is used today in Gevarm semiauto rifles .22. Flobert cartridge patent was filed 20 July 1849 and issued 4 October that year.
first patent of 1846 refers to a special kind of percussion cap and nipple, not necessarily a true breechloading arm at all. From the French patent specifica- tion of 17 July, 1846, No. 3589, issued to Flobert and to his friend Antoine Paul Regnier du Tillet, we read: “System of priming firearms by semiconical capsule which one places in the interior of the percus- sion cone.”
The cone evidently could accommodate a common outside cap, but was bored rather large at its back end and tapered slightly. The special Flobert-Tillet cap was drawn a little closer at the mouth, with a head slightly bulged and filled with priming. It looked a little like a Parker House roll. The rim was bulged out wider when fired and was grasped by hooks on either side of the hammer face, which pulled it free. While the idea could be employed with common powder-and-ball muzzle-loaders, Flobert discovered that important in his invention “is the result obtained with an indoor target pistol (pistolet de salon), thus one introduces into the percussion nipple a No. 4 ball (4 mms) and on this ball an ordinary cap rendered conique, one obtains a distance of the shot of 100 paces.” Though ball and case were as yet separate, Flobert was on his way to inventing the inside primed metallic cartridge, and with it, his famous breechloader.
The next patent was granted to Flobert alone, still at 6 Rue Racine, on October 4, 1849, No. 8618 (French). For the first time he described “A new type of firearm: This invention consists of a new mechanism or hammer (‘percuttor’) which permits me to make a great saving of price in new guns, that is to say musket, rifle, pistol, from the littlest calibers to the biggest muskets, combined with metallic cartridges (emphasis supplied) in which the power is derived from fulminat- ing powder with addition of sporting gunpowder.”
The drawing illustrates the hammer and breech- block in one piece, with hooks for catching the car- tridge rim, familiar to those who have seen the Flobert pistols. The cartridges are quite clearly pictured; in one the round ball fits at its diameter into the metallic case which carries not only priming in the base but in Flobert’s own hand the words “poudre noire,” black powder, inside. A shot cartridge was also pictured, and table-top re-loading apparatus.

Smith and Wesson’s Cartridge

It was this cartridge which Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson used as the basis for their “Improved cartridge for Pistols, Rifles or other firearms,” granted U. S. Patent No. 11, 496 on August 8, 1854, and applied for 10 May, 1853. The Smith and Wesson cartridge illustrated is the Flobert “bulleted breech cap” or BB Cap, taking 4mm or BB-size round ball.
Two innovations are introduced by the partners. First, the ball rests upon an impervious disk which covers all the powder, and between which and the back of the round ball the tallow lubrication is placed. This is an “inside lubricated” cartridge, first of its type ap- parently, but not especially claimed as such. What is claimed, by Smith & Wesson, is the construction of an internal backing plate to hold the primer pellet against the force of the central-fire pin; in this lies their “in- vention.” The words of the patent quite clearly describe an inside primed central fire cartridge, suggesting that the base of the case be made “very thin and yielding, or of some substance easily punctured by a blunt point or needle driven against it, and this for the purpose of causing priming to be inflamed either by the effect of a smart blow given on such end of the cartridge by the cock of a gun, or by a blunt needle driven smartly through the end of the cartridge and against the priming while the latter is resting on the seat-piece or disk.”
To the Flobert cartridge with its priming generally spread over the end of the case, Smith & Wesson had introduced not novelty, but impossibility. Their conception was, in small sizes at the time, too difficult to manufacture and imperfectly conceived in the first place. Flobert’s firing device was not a pin, which would pierce the copper case leaking corrosive gases into the mechanism, but a heavy rib or bar straight across the face of the hammer. It passed across the center of the case, and over the rim at both sides. It is true that Flobert’s idea had deficiencies. The prim- ing may not have been evenly spread over the inside of the case and into the rim areas, and irregular igni- tion from first one side and then the next, of succeeding cartridges, might give varying impacts of the bullets due to variations in burning caused by differences in ignition. Smith and Wesson stated in their patent the purpose of “our said arrangement of the disk and priming affording an excellent opportunity for apply- ing the force of the blow by which the priming is inflamed, such force being applied in the line of the axis of the cartridge.”
So far as is known, the partners never made a gun to take this unusual central fire small-caliber cartridge. But that it merely is an alteration and doubtful improvement of the Flobert, is obvious. How Smith came to know of Flobert is not conclusively determined, but it has been said that Smith visited France. When he visited France, it is very difficult to determine. For certain it is that by 1852 Smith had teamed up with Wesson and was working independently on an im- proved firearm, the gun which ultimately became the Henry and finally the Winchester, basis of a great series.
Hunt, Volcanic, Allen, Brown & Luther, are names that sparkle through this narrative like fireflies on a summer’s eve. To pick a starting point, it is Jennings; the single shot breechloader of Lewis Jennings, manu- factured by Robbins & Lawrence, Windsor, Vermont, and modified during that production period to be a repeating magazine rifle, using the patent of Horace Smith. The nature of the Smith invention is as a modification on an arm that was in very limited production; the mechanical characteristics seem to indicate Smith himself was working at Robbins & Lawrence in con- nection with this design improvement. Safety-pin in

Walter Hunt designed lever action .54-inch “rocket ball” repeating rifle in summer of 1847 but patent was not granted until 1849. Design was not produced, but inventor laid first stepping stone to Winchester rifle success.

ventor Walter Hunt must be blamed for this tangle of associations for it was his “rocket ball” patented August 10, 1848, and his unsuccessful repeating rifle (filed Steptember 17, 1847; granted August 21, 1849) to take this self-propelled projectile that initiated the events.
Hunt’s Rocket Ball Hunt had accomplished in his loaded bullet idea two things. First, the propelling charge and primer were contained in the one unit, far handier than con- ventional combustible paper envelope cartridges need- ing to be capped separately. Secondly, since the charge itself was inside the pointed bullet, the skirt had to be made thinner, expanding a la Minie and sealing the bore against frontwards gas escape. Though Hunt’s gun was a breechloader, the idea had its merits in theory, permitting a bullet to more easily enter a fouled chamber and wiping the fouling forWard with each shot, avoiding an accuracy-destroying build-up. Hunt’s bullet was not used to any extent in the Civil War, except as it may have figured in incidental uses of the later Volcanic-brand repeating pistols adapted to use bullets of his patent.
Hunt, it is believed, made only one model of his rifle, a patent model now preserved by the Winchester Museum. With a 25%-inch barrel of rifle caliber, .54, it measures 52V4 inches overall including a slim, tubular-form receiver IIVa inches long. An under- lever protrudes forWard of the position where the trigger finger would normally rest; is pulled back to function on the loading and firing. While the rifle is complicated to operate, the appearance is modern, with no protrusions or unnecessary gadgets hanging out. Hunt’s was the second gun patented in the United States to load from a tubular magazine beneath the barrel; his carried 12 loaded bullets.
The Jennings Repeater Jennings filed for a patent on August 2, 1848: “My invention relates to that class of firearms in which loaded balls are used and inserted in a tubular maga- zine below and parallel with the barrel.”
A shorter rifle than the Hunt model, the first-type Jennings was not particularly successful as a repeater; is more commonly found with the repeating function out of order, as a single shot. In function the Jennings is ingenious. A breechblock reciprocates fore and aft under influence of a slidable ring trigger. The trigger is fitted to a rack-gear bar. The bottom of the breechblock is also rack-toothed. A pinion idler gear unites the motions of the two. When the trigger is pushed forward inside the large loop guard, the breechblock draws back. When the trigger is pulled back, the block moves forward. At its closed position, further motion on the trigger wedges a special plate upwards, locking the plate between block and receiver, supporting the force of the explosion at that moment. The hammer has a long needle nose (inspiration for Horace Smith?) which strikes through the receiver top to impact against a priming pellet which has been deposited in the priming cavity on the breechblock in its final stage of closing. When the block is open, a Hunt rocket ball is placed inside on the carrier and chambered as the block or bolt closes. There is no provision for extraction. Military sales were looked for, though the War with Mexico had just ended. Caliber was .54 and agent C. P. Dixon of New York contrived to obtain favorable endorsements from the New York State Militia to help boost trade.
Jennings’ repeater proved too complicated, says Winchester historian Tom Hall, so the first lot were finished as single-shot rifles. Apparently serials ran in sequence; No. 250 in the Winchester Museum is an incompleted repeater functioning as a single shot. The friction in the rack-and-pinion must have been great, when fouled from firing, as no secure obturator (breech sealer) had as yet been devised.
It remained for Horace Smith’s ultimate application of a copper metal cartridge by expanding to accomplish the first effective sealing of the breech against back flash and ordinary powder fouling. It was this among other problems which confronted Horace Smith, then living in Norwich, Connecticut, when he took up his tools to modify the Jennings system. His patent, which covered the second type Jennings that was actually built in some quantity as a repeater, is dated August 26, 1851.
The principle of a prop-up block behind the true breechblock, to lock it, was retained. A direct-acting lever extended up from the pivoted loop trigger, and this lever moved the breechblock back and forth as the trigger loop was moved. The prop-block, now pivoted at its back end in permanent fashion on the frame, and free at its front end to jam up against the breechblock, appears to be the genesis of the collaps- ing toggle link later patented by the partners in their Smith & Wesson “Volcanic”-type pistols. The prop block engaged the rocking trigger by a simple hook and the arrangement reduced inner friction so the shooter had some strength left in his trigger finger to raise the cartridge lifter and carry a fresh loaded ball from the under-barrel magazine tube into line with the chamber. The same pellet primer atop the breech was used, possibly a concession to agent Dixon and some unknown ordnance buff in the military department at Albany, as the pellet primer in the United States is as- sociated with New York state arms. This improved arm received highly favorable publicity in the papers, the Mechanics Reporter for Thursday, February 20, 1851, declaring:
A new rifle: This rifle, known as Jenning’s patent rifle, is designed to be an almost endless repeater, and to avoid the difficulty of capping or priming each load, and also to be uncommonly free from dirt ... By a simple contrivance within this breech, the breech-pin is withdrawn as the gun is cocked. A cartridge (of which we shall speak) is placed in this opening and, on pulling the trigger, the pin closes the barrel tight, a strong block of steel falls behind it, and the gun primes itself and is discharged in one motion . . . By this contrivance a rifle is made capable of being loaded at the breech as often as it is fired off, and as rapidly as a man’s hand can move to throw in the cartridges. This is at the rate of twelve shots per minute, for a person not acquainted with the gun, a velocity sufficient to make one man fully equal to a dozen armed with ordinary rifles. Another variety of the same gun is now completed and nearly perfected by the patentees, which differs not at all from this in external appearance, except that, in place of a ramrod, is a tube of the same size, capable of containing thirty cartridges, which, by a very simple contrivance, are so arranged that they are placed in the barrel one by one, and fired successively without any interruption. The moment that the thirtieth ball is fired, this gun may be used as the first one, loaded at the breech, and be fired at the rate of fifteen a minute. But the chief strength of this formidable weapon rests on the cartridge which is used. This cartridge, which is also patented, is simply a loaded ball. A bullet elongated on one side to a hollow cylinder of about an inch in length, is filled with powder, and the end covered with a thin piece of cork, through the center of which is a small hole, to admit fire from the priming. As each ball goes out of the barrel, the cork cap remains in the barrel, and is carried out in front of the next ball, sweeping thoroughly all the dirt with it. The gun may thus be discharged from sixty to seventy times in good weather, without needing a swab. The barrel (held by a cross pinthrough the frame) may be detached at a single blow of a hammer or stone, and a swab run through it in a moment at any time, the operation of cleaning occupying no longer than the ordinary loading of a common gun. The priming of the rifle is in small pills, of which one hundred are placed in a box, from which the gun supplies itself without fail.
The description is substantially accurate, though it seems the magazine tubes are generally a little larger than the ramrod tube on Jennings’ first single shot. To fill the tube, it was necessary to remove the end cap, withdraw the long coil spring and follower, and then, after filling with cartridges, replace all. Thirty cartridges seems a rather fanciful number; examples of Second Type Jennings’ rifles have 26-inch barrels as a standard length, limiting the length of the maga- zine tube. Twelve or thirteen is a more reasonable number of cartridges “of about an inch in length” for the Jennings. Serials on Second Type or repeater Smith-patent Jennings rifles suggest serial numbering started over again at the beginning. Mechanically, the two are quite different.
Contractor for the Jennings was Robbins and Lawrence, a machine works established at Windsor, Vermont about 1847. The firm began with the association of Richard S. Lawrence with Nicanor Kendall at Windsor, in 1843. Kendall had, since 1835, been manufacturing guns using contract labor from the local prison, with free mechanics on hire finishing up the work. A sliding bar five-shooter is known of N. Kendall’s make, and it is believed he obtained some of his barrels from Remington. Richard Lawrence was bom 1817 at Chester, Vermont, and became employed by Kendall in 1838 at a salary of $100 per year. In 1842 Kendall & Company ceased business and the partnership of Kendall and Lawrence began. In 1844 they were joined by added capital of S. E. Robbins, and became known as Robbins, Kendall & Lawrence. It was in this form that the company undertook a contract for Ml841 Mississippi rifles, agreeing February 18, 1845, to deliver 10,000 rifles at $11.90 each in five years’ time. The contract was completed 18 months ahead of time. In 1847, Kendall bowed out, and the reorganized firm worked under the name of Robbins & Lawrence. One of Kendall’s earlier partners

Tube repeater of Lewis Jennings was improvement over Hunt designs and in turn was modified by Horace Smith. Short ring lever for cocking was carried over into pistols and carbines designed by Smith made by Winchester.

when doing business as N. Kendall & Company is listed as “Smith.” No further identification is given for him (Gluckman and Satterlee, American Gunmakers, 1953).
Robbins & Lawrence accepted a further contract for 15,000 Ml841 rifles January 5, 1848, price $12.87% each, to be delivered at Springfield, Massachusetts. Their record delivery schedule on the first batch and their competency to deliver the second was based upon their introduction of full inspection through the use of snap gauges of all parts in all stages of manufacture. They also were foremost in developing specialized machines to perform special functions in manufacturing, and supplied machine tools to other domestic gunmakers and for export to foreign arsenals. It was in this spirit that they took on the job offered by New York capitalists of making a new repeating rifle.
Hunt, in developing his first rifle and cartridge, had lacked funds to exploit it fully. He assigned his patents to a fellow New Yorker, George A. Arrowsmith. Arrowsmith was a model maker and machinist, for whom Lewis Jennings worked. It was Jennings who got the job of improving the Hunt designs and within a few months succeeded in redoing Hunt’s ideas into his own patented form protected December 1849, U.S. Pat. 6973. Seeking financing, Arrowsmith con- tacted Courtlandt Palmer, one time president of the Stonington & Providence Railroad, and a hardWare dealer of New York who would profit handsomely from being the exclusive proprietor of the Jennings repeater (if it worked). Palmer went to Robbins & Lawrence, noted as fabricators of the famous Ml 841 rifle which in the hands of Jeff Davis’s Mississippi Volunteers in the Mexican War had earned the sobriquet “Mississippi rifles.”
Robbins & Lawrence agreed in 1850 to build 5,000 Jennings rifles. In their employ at the time was Daniel Wesson, who had completed experimental work he did for Wesson & Leavitt, and to him came the project of cleaning up the Jennings rifle for production. Every biographical source commonly consulted refers to Horace Smith meeting Daniel Wesson in 1852. The statement most often read is that “The association of Smith and Wesson had begun while both were in the employ of Allen, Brown & Luther, rifle makers of Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1852.” It is true that Frederick Allen, Andrew J. Brown, and John Luther, were in business making rifle barrels in Worcester, but Williamson (Winchester) places the connection with Smith positively at Robbins & Lawrence, in connection with the Jennings rifle design. He is also quite certain, based on Mrs. Sarah (Ethan) Allen’s statements, that Smith made Flobert pistols in “1851 and 1852.” Suddenly, checking dates, and considering the role of these men in the arms industry of the time, Smith is seen to have a spare moment when he could go to France, and reasons for so doing. One reason could have been for him to visit the London Great Exhibition of 1851 and make a survey of small arms design on the Continent at that time.
The Great Exhibition opened on 1 May, 1851. Smith’s patent for modifying the Jennings gun was not to be issued until that August, but he had long since finished with his share of the development and model making. As the “Mechanics Reporter" said in February, 1851, “Another variety of the same gun is now completed and nearly perfected by the patentees.” By April, Smith must have been free to go to London. Robbins & Lawrence proposed to exhibit their Mis- sissippi rifles there, manufactured by machinery on the interchangeable plan. Smith, obviously one of their star engineers, was shipped over, we believe, with Palmer paying the bill, to see what he could find of use in the European market. He found two things: the Flobert bulleted breech cap and, possibly, as Graham Burnside argues, (“The Volcanic Quandary,” The Gun Report, December 1958) an entire breechloading pistol mechanism for which he was to either obtain the rights or pirate whole, to solve deficiencies of the Jennings-Smith system.
Flobert attended the Great Exibition. The rifles and muskets one wonders at; did Flobert make a cartridge so large as 17mm for a breech-loading or transformed musket? The making of a copper cartridge case all in one piece of that size, if Flobert really had one, suggests he was a man of exceptional mechanical skill in fundamental engineering. Whether he conceived of deep drawing to shape a one-piece cartridge or rested content with soldered or riveted-on bases as some of his contemporaries did, is an unanswered puzzle in arms history. But if Smith got near to the Great Exhibition, it is a certainty that he met Flobert, since both were exhibitors. Smith had made a few breech-loading maga- zine pistols designed by Orville Percival at Moodus, Connecticut; they are known to have been made by “H. Smith, Norwich, Ct.” Using separate magazines for powder and ball, which hung teat-like below the breech machinery like teats on a cow udder, this was a notably unsuccessful invention. Smith must have been eager to find mechanical ideas which could be refined to practical applications. The Flobert was one; the Vendetti was another.

The Vendetti Pistol

There has come to the attention of American pistol collectors in the past few years since World War II a group of unusual arms, some of which bear the marks “Vendetti Brevettato,” or Vendetti patent. It is assumed these pistols are “Italian,” though from which of the Italian states of approximately 1850 has not been determined. The name of the supposed inventor is obviously Vendetti, and he apparently obtained a patent on his pistol. It, and the design patented by Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson February 14, 1854, are almost identical in construction.
Says Graham Burnside, in his very interesting and admittedly speculative essay on the Volcanic of Smith & Wesson, and the Vendetti, “This leads one to wonder where the Volcanic pistol came from.”
“Maybe the gun came to us from Europe,” he con

US Government test report of Henry rifle pictured gun complete, showing lever in down position and breech bolt with- drawn which cocked gun, and also all parts. Double pieces near lower left of disassembled view are toggle links that collapse when lever is moved. Principle is identical to enigmatic Italian Vendetti pistol, suggesting missing link which designer Horace Smith found overseas.

tinues, “where it was a parlour arm (c.f. saloon pistol) using self-contained cartridges like the Loron and the Gaupillat.
“Loron was working with self-contained ammuni- tion back in the late 1830’s and early 1840’s. Strangely enough we know of arms that look like copies of the Volcanic, that are made to handle the Loron and Gaupillat cartridges. We cannot prove that these foreign gallery pistols were made before the Volcanic but we can prove that they used ammunition that was earlier than Volcanic ammunition.
“When viewing a foreign product like the system Vendetti pistols one gets a strange sensation. Here is a ‘Volcanic’ that works, and works well. The whole thing seems to be designed expressly for the saloon cartridge that it shoots, and the saloon cartridge is older than the American Volcanic patent. The Vendetti not only has a ‘system’ which is identical in design to

Early lever pistol made by Smith & Wesson in Norwich is distinguished from later “Volcanic” arms by iron frame, and hump behind hammer. Spur to loop is also early

S & W motif. Front section of barrel swings to side exposing end of magazine tube for loading, after follower and spring has been pulled up into front section below barrel.

the Volcanic, but the contours of the pistol leave no doubt that one or the other is a copy.

“We also have seen Vendetti pistols that appear almost identical in function to the Volcanics, that have a chamber to accept a cartridge case. I do not know of such a cartridge (Burnside’s field of arms scholarship is cartridge history) . . . but it is obvious that it was a rimfire type utilizing a double striker. This ties in with Smith and Wesson’s intended cartridge, and even the double striker as used in the later Henry rifles. The odds are, that these Vendetti pistols are earlier than our American Volcanic.”

There is much sense in Burnside’s speculation, determined on a study of the drawings of the Smith and Wesson design of 1854, and a reading of the claims of the patent. Structurally, the most obvious element in the Vendetti, Volcanic, and the “damn Yankee” rifle that fired all week, when the sideplates are taken off, is the collapsing breechlocking toggle joint. The breechpin, to use Jennings’ term, is slidable. At its back end it is connected by an assembly crosspin to one of two linked arms which are themselves fastened at the far end of the rear link to an assembly pin in the frame. Cut inside each rear link is a cam track. The finger lever, not divorced from the added function of triggering off the hammer, has an engagement with this cam groove or track. When the finger lever is thrown down and forWard, its upper end connected to the rear link is pushed back and down, pulling the rear link out of its “stiff knee” alignment with the breechpin. With the collapse of the toggle links a consequent shortening of their fore-and-aft dimensions takes place, withdrawing the breechpin from its forward position. At the same time the finger lever further activates a lifting lever that raises a platform, -originally in line with the magazine, to a line with the barrel. The breechpin on the return stroke passes through a trough in this platform pushing ahead of it the cartridge, “rocket ball” or metallic, into the barrel.
It was this design which occupied Smith upon his completion of the Jennings modification. Williamson, in speaking of this new arm, a product of joint efforts between Smith, Wesson, and Courtlandt Palmer who furnished the money, is quite definite: “Out of this experimentation came a new patent (U.S. 10,535) granted to Smith & Wesson in February, 1854. The most important feature of this rifle (the patent showsa pistol) was the mechanism that moved the bolt and locked it in position with its head supporting the car- tridge. It was a simple mechanism and, for cartridges of medium power, a highly satisfactory method of obtaining reciprocal movement in the carrier and locking the block in its forWard position. This improvement, added to the tubular magazine and the rising breechblock of earlier models, completed the essential mechanical features that were subsequently incorporated in the early Winchester rifles.”
A look at the patent reveals Williamson’s conjecture to be in error, for the toggle joint, “the most important feature,” is not patented by Smith & Wesson. The illustrations include views of a pistol, of the form later known as “The Volcanic.” There are eleven claims; not one claims the toggle link construction for locking the breech and imparting motion to the breech pin. The second claim is a Flobert-type claim, “In combination with an extractor for drawing the shell out of the chamber, a device arranged to strike the shell or cartridge and expel the same from the arm.” The first claim is also, when taken with the extractors, which were two hooks, one on either side of the breechpin, a Flobert conception: “The combination of the percussion hammer (used in sense of percussive force, not percussion detonating cap), the sliding breechpiece, and the barrel, substantially as described, whereby the breechpin H, shall serve both as a breech to hold the cartridge in the barrel, and as a means of conveying the force of the blow of the hammer to the cartridge, substantially as set forth.”
There was no firing pin as we think of it today, in this first Smith & Wesson repeater but, instead, a solid part of the breechblock, containing the extractor hooks, was hit on its rear end by the fall of the hammer and by means of a “billiard ball” shock trans- mission the primer was detonated. The cartridge shown in this patent is not claimed and, as was so often the fact, the really important key to the construction was held up in patenting for a longer time, to give that much added real protection of patents to the article made for sale.
The gun and ammunition package Smith and Wesson wanted to make featured a Flobert type cartridge in its inception. But the toggle link breechlocking device, not found in the same form in any other American firearm, is not claimed for protection. Closest to it is the fourth claim: “The combination of the hammer and the breechpiece H, with the operating lever G, whereby the hammer may be cocked by the movement of the operating lever, substantially as described.” The operating lever G is the loop finger lever that serves also as a trigger guard; the breechpiece H is the breechblock or bolt on the front end of which are hooks r-r acting as cartridge case extractors.
The other claims, which in one sense or another mention the movement of the breechpiece in combi- nation with the operating lever, do not expressly claim the collapsing toggle joint as a breechlock but relate to handling metallic cartridges in the gun. It might be argued by the sophisticated patent expert that a toggle joint is a common mechanical principle and could not have been patented. But toggle joints are not patented as common mechanical principles; what would be patentable, in the absence of other arms of the same construction, would be a toggle joint acting as a breechlock; a common mechanical principle in a special application.
It is an axiom of patent law, in the words of contemporary patent expert Ned Dickerson, that “you can describe your elephant, and talk about your elephant, but if you do not claim him, he is not your elephant.” Smith and Wesson did not claim their elephant; probably because they knew it to have appeared in another firearm elsewhere—the saloon pistol “Vendetti.” Whether it was Smith who returned from Europe with a Vendetti in his pocket, that in- spired the new gun, or B. Tyler Henry who helped the two while at Robbins & Lawrence, to perfect the toggle link, the fact remains that the most obvious feature of the new weapon, basis for a long line of Winchesters, is not patented by the “inventors.”

Benjamin Tyler Henry

Benjamin Tyler Henry was another ex-Springfield Armory man. That shop in Windsor must have seemed like a friendly frat house for these mechanical lads who served their time at Springfield. Henry had long been interested in repeaters. He served his apprentice- ship with J. B. and R. B. Ripley, gunsmiths of his home town, Claremont, New Hampshire, where he was born March 22, 1821. R. B. Ripley, Lebbeus Baily, and William B. Smith had patented a “water- proof rifle,” an underhammer magazine gun inspired by the breechblock of the Hall and thought by some to be an “intermediate” step between the Hall and the Spencer butt-loaded repeater of the War. This wild idea, fundamentally sound, was patented February 20, 1839. To polish off his training as master machinist, Henry went to Springfield Armory. He left there in 1842, suggesting his employment was also in connection with the retooling for the new interchangeable muskets and, when that was finished, there was no work for him in the production line. He returned to his home area, to nearby Windsor, there to work for Nicanor Kendall. When Kendall became Kendall, Robbins & Lawrence, and later Robbins & Lawrence,
Henry remained. His background of work at Springfield probably fitted him for planning out the ma- chinery with which Kendall, Robbins & Lawrence prepared their first “Mississippi” rifle on the interchangeable plan. It is probable that Henry went on to Norwich, Connecticut, when Wesson formed the association with Smith and took the work to Smith’s gunshop in Norwich. Certainly Henry knew Smith at Springfield Armory, and the continuing business asso- ciation of friends is not at all unusual.
By June of 1854, Palmer and the mechanics were ready to make some terms. On the 20th a limited partnership was formed of Smith, Wesson, and Palmer. They owned the Hunt, Jennings, Smith improvement, and the February 1854 Smith and Wesson patents; their shop was at central wharf in Norwich, Connecticut.
Smith & Wesson
Which came first, is always a subject of interest to the arms collector who may like to have one of “the first series” produced of any famous make. The Smith & Wesson (Norwich) repeating pistols were built in two basic frame sizes, their No. 1, .30-inch (sometimes called .31), and No. 2 or Navy size, .38 (sometimes called .41). Both had iron frames, often lightly scroll engraved with coarse, cheap patterns quickly executed. We believe the smallest No. 1 frame type, .30, was issued first, having as it does certain “primitive” characteristics. Barrel is half octagon at breech, round forWard; and the finger lever has a little tang, like the patent picture; though this little tang is not found on all the smallest pistols. The butt is of pepperbox form similar to the common Allen pistols, and the half-octagon barrels are also very reminiscent of the single shot target pistols made by the Allen clan; with whom, it will be remembered, Smith had previously had some connection. Allen and Thurber, for example, made pepperboxes in Norwich, Connecticut, a form of gun manufacture with which Smith was certainly familiar, he having worked for them until 1846, off and on.
Taking a certain risk, we would like to set forth a theory of development behind the external forms of these Smith and Wesson pistols. Logically, we have worked backWards from the later designs, discarding or adding as circumstances seem to dictate, till we arrive at the primitive form. The theory is this:
First in production were the smallest pistols. In final form, their date of issue is less important than when they were actually made. This we believe to have been earlier by some months than the filing date of the St. Valentine’s Day patent 1854, which was May 24, 1853. The patent illustration shows one of the .41 caliber pistols, square butt as might be ex- pected, in a large frame gun. This was because the small pistols did not work out so well and models of the larger guns had to be built, and ammunition made up for them, to prove the system.
Smith was responsible for the small pistols. Evidencing pepperbox details, including the ring lever (found on Blunt’s and other types including the Continental Mariette), and some fanciful shaping to the outside of the receiver, they are more “hand made” than the bigger arms. Small, they took less metal to make; in those days cost of raw materials was much higher compared with labor than today, and the added labor of working with the smaller pieces in fitting and then assembly of the .30 calibers was olfset by the savings in materials, especially laboriously hook-rifled barrels. Smith was 17 years older than Wesson, certainly the dominant figure in the partnership at first. The little pistol was Smith’s production, made largely by hand using frame castings probably bought from Allen & Thurber. The sideplate construction of the Smith & Wesson guns reveals Allen-type technology, as well.
Whether Smith proposed to use the Hunt rocket ball, or the Flobert cap, in the first pistols, is not known. But apparently some difficulties occurred for there are minor functional changes between the round butt guns and the bigger square butt pistols of the patent. A “prawl” or hump to the frame is added. This more solidly positions the frame in the hand when working the finger lever, something which it seems is almost impossible to do one-handed. The muscles of the fingers are better adapted to pulling in than they are to pushing out. The ammunition for the guns, on the other hand, seems to be a concession to Wesson’s point of view. For Smith, it would appear, definitely wanted to make the guns to use a metallic cartridge.
Experiments continued even after setting the form of the small pistol into production. Ultimately the larger pistol was made up, and test metallic cartridges hand-made for it, we assume from viewing the patent of February 1854. By that spring of 1853 the largest frame gun existed, fully equipped with extractors and ejectors to handle metallic cartridges of centerfire con- struction having a rim. The tube magazine was clever, also. The plug that followed the cartridges back to the action, had a button on it which slid along the tube in a slot on the bottom. When the button was slid all the way out with the spring compressed, it was possible to turn aside several inches of sleeve about the muzzle, into which the spring and plug had been compressed, allowing filling the magazine tube from the front end. By turning the front sleeve back in line, the cartridges were put under spring tension to feed them one at a time to the cartridge carrier or

Iron frame, style treatment of handles, on Allen & Thurber pepperbox of 1840’s made in Norwich, Conn. at shop employing also Horace Smith suggests relationship between technology Smith learned making pepper box frames, and first of the Smith & Wesson lever pistols. Small caliber S & W lever pistols have round butts, grip plates, cast frames much like Allen pepperboxes.

lifter. J. Carrier of Baltimore displayed one of their new pistols at the annual Fair of the Maryland Insti- tute for the Promotion of Mechanical Arts in 1854. The two men were quite proud to receive a Gold Medal of the Institute, for “a self loader, and works remarkably well; it is a good invention, and we think it will be extensively used, and is entitled to notice.”
Courtlandt Palmer’s hopes for sales from such publicity were not to be fully realized; and in ten years Balti- more men in Maryland Confederate regiments would rue the day they were confronted with that “damn Yankee rifle” which they had helped along by voting its originators a gold medal.
The Flobert cartridges of Smith were not suitable for use in the lever action pistol. With fulminate spread over the entire base inside, a considerable force was developed on the interior of the soft copper case head. Bulging and jamming of the extracting mechanism must have plagued the little Smith-Norwich pistols. They turned to the Hunt bullet, perhaps at the urging of junior partner Dan Wesson; perhaps, and more likely, at the insistence of financier Palmer, that they get up something to sell.
The exact form of bullet used in the Smith & Wesson pistols differed somewhat in construction from Hunt’s original form. It became known as the “Volcanic” bullet, and though all Smith & Wesson and later “Volcanic” pistols were made to use this, it never worked well. According to engineer William C. Hicks, who was concerned with improvements in the Smith & Wesson pistol design:
Its cartridge was of lead and hollow, what has been termed a loaded ball. Black powder was put in the cavity and the end was closed with a metallic disc and cork containing fulminate between them, the only part exposed being the cork. A blunt instrument projecting centrally from the breechpin was pressed through this cork when the breech was closed against the cartridge. This mashed the fulminate against the steel disc, where it was fired by a blow given the end of the breechpin by the hammer. The ball never extracted if there was a misfire, you had to push it out with a ramrod. The steel disc in the cartridge on firing, went out the muzzle sometimes, and sometimes came back and caused trouble. The cork was drawn back by the breechpin into which the cork had been forced by the explosion; the old type had a recess in the breechpin for this purpose. The cork was pushed off by the rising carrier block. The cartridge did not extract if the gun was not fired. Later a cap was added by Smith & Wesson, covering the cork and disc around the edges, leaving a circular hole in the center and holding the steel disc by a flange. The new cap made a more solid end to the ball and brought the steel disc back with the cork.
Crittenden & Tibbals made the balls for the Smith & Wesson Volcanic. The cartridge first used a hollow based bullet, which was filled with powder, then closed with a steel and cork disc holding the fulminate. As originally made, the bullet was first charged, then the steel disc placed, next the fulminate added, then the cork placed, and the bullet closed at the rear. After assembly, the ball was grooved and greased. Later a metal cap was used to cover the cork. Then the disc, fulminate, cork, and cap were assembled, and put into the bullet as a unit. The end was then swaged and varnished. The cork base was used before August 1855. Then a copper cap was added and used till December 1855. Thereafter, brass was used to facilitate extraction. The brass
cap used on the No. 1 size had the same size hole as before, but that used on the No. 2 size had a smaller hole, which improved extraction.
It was a loaded ball of this complex construction, with an extraction of residue dependent upon little more than the friction of the “blunt instrument,” a firing pin, with the cork gas seal, that Smith & Wes- son had built for Palmer to sell by the summer of 1854. The bullet construction was issued a patent eventually January 22, 1856, No. 14,147, though it was already obsolete at the time.
Sales had been good, but disappointments and complaints even more than they expected. The mechanism of the gun with its rocket ball was no more odd than a dozen other competitive firearms on the market. The shooting man of 1854 was by no means so hidebound in his acceptance of new things as the shooter is today. But he did know the difference between a gun that shot rapidly and well, and a pistol that misfired and could not then be easily cleared without a ramrod to poke the bullet out. At least with one of Colt’s percussion revolvers, if one charge failed, you could go on to the next. Not so with the Smith & Wesson— you had to get the dud out before firing another. And misfires were common. While the primer pellet was neatly protected by the cork wad from sideways dis- placement, according to engineer Hicks, it was mashed by the firing pin when the breech was closed. In other words, the firing pin, which did not move separately like a modem pin, was in actual contact with the priming pellet. If the pellet was a little large, and the pin pushed heavily on it, the primer might be crushed. In modern handloading where the shooting hobbyist in- troduces variables, avoidance of too much pressure on seating the primer, which might crash it, is im- portant. Crashed primers lack sensitivity, will not fire most of the time. The transmission of shock without moving the firing pin from hammer to primer, which was a principal ingredient in the Smith & Wesson pistol, was also its main defect. But financiers could not know that. As the complaints piled up, so did interested inquiries from other financiers, less well informed in arms design. Among them was shirtmaker Oliver Fisher Winchester, of New Haven.

Smith & Wesson Shop Sold

Sale of the Smith & Wesson shop at Norwich was consummated in June of 1855 to a newly organized stock company having Winchester as one of the active members. The new Volcanic Repeating Arms Company paid the partners $65,000 in cash, plus 2,800 shares of stock, for the partnership assets including their machinery and stock on hand.
During August, 1855, said Winchester, the machinery, tools, and fixtures, and arms, finished and unfinished, were removed from Norwich to New Haven. “Among these assets purchased were about 300 pistols of both sizes, finished and unfinished, and the parts of some 280 or 300 more pistols, not assembled. The (Volcanic) company was occupied, in part, nearly or quite a year in overhauling and repairing and assembling these 600 pistols, more or less, and manufacturing a new model, and the tools and fixtures for that model. The (Volcanic) company continued for the remaining six months of its existence in finishing and selling pistols of this new model until Febru- ary 3, 1856, when they passed a vote to go into insolvency and made an assignment accordingly.”

Beginnings of mighty Winchester-Western armaments em- pire were small. This two-story brick house on Orange Street, north of Grove Street, New Haven, was first office for Vol- canic Arms Co

The Volcanic Repeating Arms Company of New Haven was capitalized at $150,000 with 6,000 shares of common stock at $25 a share. The partnership of Smith, Wesson, and Palmer held almost a majority share with 2,800 shares at $70,000. Among other stockholders was William C. Hicks, and Green Ken- drick, who in 1862 obtained a contract for but did not deliver any Springfield rifle muskets. Winchester owned 80 shares. President of the firm, one of the largest stockholders, was Nelson H. Gaston of New Haven. Perhaps some of the $65,000 cash went to pay off Palmer, for he faded from the scene. Smith for a time served as superintendent, but left after what may have been only a few weeks, moving up to Springfield where he kept a livery stable with his brother-in-law, William Collins, on Market Street. Daniel Wesson then assumed the superintendency. Some conflict may be assumed to have occurred between him and stockholder Hicks, for Hicks felt the extracting difficulties could be solved by adding a slight hook to the end of the firing pin or as it was sometimes called, “nipple.” Says Hicks, “My new hook extractor was added about February 1, 1856, to all new arms being made. All small-size pistols brought back for repairs after about October 1, 1855, were altered.” Says Winchester, . . the 3rd of Febru- ary, 1856, when they passed a vote to go into in- solvency . . Says Samuel L. Talcott, a stockholder and secretary of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company:
New Haven, February 8, 1856
Daniel Baird Wesson Dear Sir:
By vote of the Board of Directors of “The Volcanic Re- peating Arms Company” I am hereby instructed to inform you of their acceptance of your resignation of the office of Superintendent of Said Company, to take effect on Monday next. And also acknowledge their appreciation of your services as a mechanic, and the conscientious discharge of your duties as a man(ager?). With respect, I am Very truly yours,
Samuel L. Talcott, Secretary
Why this flight of talent and capital from the Volcanic Company? Personalities may have been part of the answer; Dan Wesson himself was a pretty firm personality for a young man, and may have tangled with Hicks. The letter of Talcott reads a little like a recommendation as well as an acceptance of resignation. He felt it necessary to speak of Wesson’s abilities as a mechanic, as if they had been called into ques- tion, rather than simply accept the resignation. What- ever the cause, the situation was aggravated by the death of Nelson Gaston. Floundering management was set on a firm footing by minority stockholder Winchester.
Oliver F. Winchester
“O. F.” owned but $4,000 worth of the Volcanic Company, but he was no featherweight in business, finance, and manufacturing. Born November 10, 1810 in Boston, his father died when he was one, and he had been brought up early to accept responsibility. At seven he went to work on a farm; at 14 he was apprenticed to a carpenter. When he was 20, as a master, he went to Baltimore and worked as a building contractor. He was prospering; after three years he changed his career and worked in a local dry goods store. At 24 he had founded enough of an estate to consider marriage a safe proposition, and at the same time opened his own retail men’s furnishings store in Baltimore. As one of his customers for the fancier grades of goods, he might have had young Sam Colt, who was traveling about the country as “Dr. Coult, of London and Calcutta.” Colt worked as a traveling showman, raising money for early revolving pistol model-making. Winchester may have later remembered this early friendship when he proposed contracting with Colt’s for the manufacture of his perfected Henrymodified Smith & Wesson design as a rifle.
Winchester was a man of considerable intellectual curiosity. He was also a man to turn a profit. Farm boy, carpenter, clothing merchant; in 1847 he patented a method of cutting men’s shirts to avoid pull on the neckband, and in 1848 moved back north, to New Haven, where labor was cheaper, and started a shirt factory.
He took as partner John M. Davies, clothing jobber of New York, in 1849, and while textile machinery magnate Daniel Leavitt was backing Edwin Wesson and Joshua Stevens in Chicopee, the man to be the most famous riflemaker of the world was betting his shirt on a shirt factory of grand proportions. Before

Volcanic .41 was reputed to have astonishing accuracy but modern researchers computed chances of hit- ting target as reported in 1850’s to be against large odds.

1853, Winchester employed 800 people to cut shirts and the parts were sent out to about five thousand workers to sew at home by hand. In 1853, sewing machines were installed—five hundred of them. With a works force exceeding 1,000, Oliver Winchester was one of the big men of New England. He became presi- dent in December, 1856, upon Nelson Gaston’s un- timely death, of a tiny works near the corner of Orange and Grove Streets, New Haven. Fifty people were at work, under direction of William C. Hicks, who had succeeded Wesson as superintendent in February.
Williamson makes an interesting statement about Hicks: “Little is known of Hicks’ early life and training, but he appears to have been an experienced mechanic. There is nothing, however, to indicate that he knew very much about guns.” (Emphasis supplied). Neither, for that matter, did Smith or Wesson know very much about guns. Their whole history to date seems to have been in connection with mechanically unsuccessful ventures, in spite of the big cash settle- ment Volcanic paid them. First the Jennings rifles, then Flobert single shots, or the Massachusetts Arms Company guns that were proved infringements of another’s patents ... all these had cost money, though as practical mechanics there seems to be no quarrel with their talents. Now, they pull out of the Volcanic enterprise, voluntarily or by request, leaving it in a sinking condition.
The truth is, nobody in those days knew anything about guns, any more than any person today can honestly be said to “know about guns.” The standards are relative; the ideas seemed good, but the times needed something a little better. Publicity and promotion often replaced mechanical perfection in launch- ing a product, then as today. The papers were kinder to the “Volcanic.” Six days after the company was voted into bankruptcy, the New Haven Journal-Courier (quoting the New York Tribune) said: “The Volcanic pistol and rifle seem the very perfection of firearms, and must be favorites with the public when they are fully known. We understand that orders crowd in upon the company from all quarters.” By November 17,
1856, the J ournal-Courier, again quoting the Tribune, described under “Tall Pistol Shooting” a rather unbelievable performance by Colonel Hay of the British Army.

“The (Volcanic) pistol used on the occasion was an 8-inch barrel, which discharged nine balls in rapid succession. The colonel fired shots which would do credit to a rifleman. He fired at an 8-inch diameter target at 100 yards, putting 9 balls inside the ring. He then moved back to a distance of 200 yards, and fired 9 balls more, hitting the target seven times. He then moved back 100 yards further, a distance of 300 yards from the mark, and placed five of the nine balls inside the ring, and hitting the bullseye twice. The man who beats that may brag.”

The ballisticians of the modern-day Winchester firm studied this opus and concluded after some analysis that Hay’s chances against putting 9x9 into an 8-inch target at 100 yards were about 11 to 1. The odds against 7 x 9 at 200 yards, about 70 to 1; and at 300 yards, one chance in 7,140 of doing what was claimed.
I recall in 1944 meeting a Marine Corps sergeant in an antique gun store in Baltimore, who might shed some light upon this feat of “tall shooting.” He told me that he did not want to sell any of his Volcanic bullets, as he still used the pistol for shooting.
With Volcanic voted into bankruptcy, there was an interregnum when men remained at work but no company existed to carry forWard the design, manufactur- ing, and sales. O. F. had advanced some $25,000 to the Volcanic firm to keep it going, and money had come in from some of its sales agents, notably Post and Wheeler of New York who had ordered $11,000 worth. These guns had been delivered to Post and Wheeler during the summer and autumn of 1856, and presumably included some of the Smith & Wesson guns and parts made at Norwich. Many claims existed against the Volcanic firm from its stockholders and raw material suppliers, but as late as May of 1857 “The settlement of the affairs of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company is now being delayed by claims at law . . . occasioned by the inferior quality of the workmanship of the arms sent Messrs. Post and Wheeler during the last summer and autumn.”
Exactly what the “inferior workmanship” was, is not specified, but a look at Hicks’ role in the firm reveals some clues. Defect in the Volcanic pistol was still the ammunition, which Hicks tried to remedy by adapting the gun to handle the Smith & Wesson loaded bullet. Also, there was no proper chamber in the Volcanic, just a bored-out groove-depth section at the breech. The rifling alone was not enough resistance to the entrance of the loaded bullet to position it regularly all the time. Sometimes it would be shoved too far forward, and that would cause a misfire. At other times it conceivably could fire upon closing the lever smartly. Also, ignition of all the cartridges in the magazine tube, Roman-candle fashion, it is said was possible with the Volcanic.
As much as he could, Hicks tried to correct things. For the firing pin or nipple, he designed a hook, that caught inside the cork and metal plate assembly and removed it upon withdrawing the breechpin. New arms made after February 1, 1856, had Hicks’ improvement on them, and small pistols which had been sent in for repairs, actually a readjustment to make sure they were working correctly, were modified before returning to customers, after October 1, 1855. It was before this that the large lot of arms was sent out to Post and Wheeler, arms that were of “bad workmanship.” Presumably, the Post and Wheeler arms would not extract properly.
“We first made a single nipple or hook,” said Hicks,
“then single with two prongs, finally a double nipple or hook. The hook works as follows: On firing, the lower side of the primer (disc) moves forWard, often through 90 degrees, leaving the primer (disc) engaged on the bill of the hook by the rear side of the hole in the disc cover. It is then withdrawn and removed by the rising carrier block. The single prong hook was used on the small pistol and the double prong hook on the large size, after the winter of 1855-56 ... I fired twenty balls each in twenty arms every day for months. The gun needed very little cleaning.” What it did need was a decent cartridge.
Meanwhile, Winchester had formed a new organization, the New Haven Arms Company. He proposed to carry on Volcanic production under his management. He seems to have been bitten by the “gun bug” and perhaps delighted in this paradoxical industry as a sort of hobby, a respite so to speak, from making money making shirts.
Volcanic stumbled along and failed to meet some notes at the bank. Upon petition by the Tradesman’s Bank of New Haven, Volcanic was declared insolvent on February 18, 1857. Talcott and R. B. Bennett

Volcanic carbines and ammunition in original boxes remained in storage at Volcanic Arms Co. when firm went into liquidation in February, 1857. Guns were discovered in attic of Winchester in 1920’s or ’30’s, and placed by the main gate for employees who wanted to buy one as souvenir. Guard was instructed to collect twenty five cents from each employee for each carbine taken. Specimen shown, cal. 38 taking “No. 2” Volcanic cartridges, from Winchester Museum, would today bring perhaps $2,500.

Substantial factory was put up to turn out New Haven Arms Co. pistols and carbines and then Henry rifles in 1860. Though firm had considerable technical talent, production on improved cartridge repeater of B. Tyler Henry’s was slow in getting started at this plant.
were appointed trustees; Eli Whitney, Jr., Henry Newson, and Charles Ball, to make an inventory of the assets. Irony indeed, for Eli Whitney, Jr. had his own firm, the internationally famous Whitneyville Armoury, which Oliver Winchester’s company was to buy up when it in turn failed a few decades hence.
Winchester arranged with the Tradesman’s Bank, and with the heirs of Nelson Gaston, to take over their claims. By order of the court, on March 15, 1857, Winchester for $39,000 obtained title to the entire assets of the Volcanic Arms Company. There was nothing left over for the stockholders, not even for the 2,800 shares held by Smith and Wesson. On April 3,1857. the New Haven Arms Company articles of association were signed. Winchester had brought along seven shareholders who had lost money in Volcanic, and four new ones. He turned over to the New Haven Arms Company all the Volcanic assets: guns, tools, and patent rights, for 800 of the 2,000 shares of stock (par $25), and $20,000 in cash. He did not sell the patents which he acquired, but only assigned the right to manufacture, to the New Haven firm.
The guns made by all three firms, Smith & Wesson, Volcanic, and New Haven Arms, are fundamentally alike internally. Outside, there are differences. Though rifles are not listed as of Smith & Wesson make, there do exist specimens of Smith & Wesson marked Norwich lever rifles, including one handsome experimental piece in .50 rimfire, serial number 8. This evidently did not take the rocket ball cartridge, but it was not made up for general sale and possibly Winchester him
self never got to see this specimen or recognize it for what it was, until later. J. W. Post, Volcanic agent at 23 John Street, New York, advertised “Volcanic re- peating rifles, carbines, and pistols will fire 30 shots per minute.” But actual production shoulder arms of either Smith & Wesson, or Volcanic, are not to be found. Only when Winchester formed New Haven Arms Company did actual shoulder-stocked guns get into production, though Volcanic had attached stocks temporarily and made up pistol-carbines or “hunter’s companion” guns. A tabulation made by Colonel B. R. Lewis of these regularly produced arms includes: Smith &Wesson, Norwich, Ct., 1853-55

Caliber	Weapon
.30	4" pistol
.38	8" pistol (“Navy”)
jlcanic Repeating Arms Co., New Haven, 1856-7
.30	4"" pistol
.30	6" pistol
.38	6" pistol
.38	8" pistol
.38	8" pistol with stock
.38	16%", 21", 25" carbines

and rifles.
New Haven Arms Co., New Haven, 1857-60

.30	4" pistol
.30	6" pistol
.40	6" pistol
.40	8" pistol
.40	16Vi", 21", 25" carbines
	and rifles.

A price list of the New Haven Arms Company stated the number of charges each of their guns would hold was: 4-inch pistol, 6 balls; 6-inch pistol for target practice, 10 balls; 6-inch Navy pistol, 8 balls; 8-inch Navy pistol, 10 balls, 16Vi-inch carbine, 20 balls; 20- inch carbine, 25 balls; 25-inch carbine, 30 balls. The carbine lengths are from measured specimens, though the factory listed them at 16 inches, 20 inches, and 24 inches. But Winchester had got himself stuck with the same product that Smith & Wesson and the then stockholders of Volcanic had dumped.
“After buying the Smith & Wesson patents in 1855,” he reported later, “I was never able to make the ‘im- provements’ in their February 14 and October 10, 1854 (reissue) patents work reliably, but used the hollow ball. It was for this reason that I hired Henry to work out a practical system.”
B. Tyler Henry was responsible for the ultimate development of the Winchester repeater. He at first made minor refinements. Brass was instituted for the receivers of the Volcanics instead of cast iron. Iron had to be blued, an added operation and if the blueing was poorly done, it had to be repolished and reblued. Brass could be polished once, lacquered, and left alone. Once sold, it was up to the customer to keep it polished if he desired. The barrel, which Smith liked turned round at the muzzle, like the single shot pistols of his mentors Allen and Thurber, was left full octagon. This saved an operation or two at the lathe and reduced the cost of the arm a trifle. But it was in solving the problem of the cartridge that Henry showed his true ability as a mechanic.
With the growing tension throughout the nation, work was pushed forWard and he applied for a patent upon his improvement to the Volcanic. Winchester had obtained, as a consequence of the Smith & Wesson deal, certain parallel rights to Smith & Wesson patents. That is, he as well as Smith & Wesson had the right to use certain S & W patents. Important to this agree- ment was the Flobert-transformed cartridge, the in- side primed centerfire, patented by them on August of 1854. Their agreement gave to the Volcanic company, and therefore to Winchester by his obtaining the Vol- canic assets, . . the exclusive use and control of all patents and patent rights which the said Smith and the said Wesson or either of them can or may here- after obtain or acquire for inventions or improvements in firearms or ammunition.”
Such a sweeping assignment seems not to have ever been invoked by Winchester except in the metallic cartridge efforts of his workman, Henry. For what Henry was doing was giving some sense to the little in- side primed cartridge by making it bigger, easier to handle in drawing presses and in priming, and stronger because of the increased wall thickness possible. Issued October 16, 1860, with the election of the Illinois lawyer growing near, Henry’s patent No. 30446, “. . . relates to improvements in a repeating breechloading gun, designed and arranged for the exclusive use of a hollow loaded ball, with a primer inserted at the base. My improvements are designed to remove the objection heretofore existing . . . adapting the arm to the use of a solid ball, enclosed in a metal cartridge, thus greatly increasing the power and certainty of fire of the arms.”
The leverage of the odd finger lever must have troubled Henry and Winchester, too. No more would the flat, graceful, but almost unmanageable pocket pistols appear. The New Haven Arms Company began to devote itself to getting up the tools to build a flashy brass-framed octagon barreled rifle, a repeater taking a heavy, solid bullet of .44 caliber, backed by a meaningful charge of 40 grains more or less of black powder. Machines for spinning the empty cartridge case in loading had been devised, and a drop of safely wet fulminate placed on the center of the case head inside would soon spread itself out to the rim, to dry there permanently. Misfires were uncommon but could occur with the Henry rifle, when the firing pin, moveable now and separate in the breechpin, hit a “dead space” of the rim where there was no fulminate. But at last an extractor, big enough and adapted to the one purpose of hooking the rim to pull the shell out, was to be found. For the first time Smith & Wesson’s original patented pistol was to be manufactured as a rifle, and Benjamin Tyler Henry was to receive the credit.

Toward end of War, Henry and Winchester improved design by adapting system to .50 caliber and using loading gate attached to bottom of frame. Lower rifle resembled succeeding “King’s Improved” Model 1866 but gun shown, from Smith- sonian patent office collection, is still a true “Henry” though with wooden forestock.

Handsome pair of .31 caliber Volcanic pistols are lightly engraved on brass frames. Style of gun is somewhat more sophisticated artistically than iron-frame S & Ws, but mechanism is fundamentally same. Guns are new, having been preserved in Winchester collection to this day. Larger sizes and a pistol- carbine with detachable stock were also made, as well as rifles.

On the base of rimfire cartridges made by Winchester, a small “H” began to appear. This stood for Henry, master mechanic and the man who fashioned the first Winchester. Why Winchester chose to remain in the background is a mystery. He obviously liked to piddle along with these things. For five years he was losing money as fast as his shirt firm could make it. Perhaps he envisioned War profits when the conflict should at last begin. But in spite of his sales sense and political connections, he definitely did not act the role of the “profiteer.”