Civil War Guns

The Ml853 Enfield long rifle was first manufactured in the United States. In 1853 a revolution was in progress—a revolution in manufacturing. That same Major Anderson, who later was Southern agent in Birmingham was, at the time, master armorer of Enfield. This factory had existed for a number of years principally as a barrel mill and parts storehouse. The trouble leading up to the Crimean War suggested to the Crown the advisability of putting arms procurement more directly under control of the government, by expanding the Enfield establishment and introducing machinery and mass production. The example of the Colt factory in Pimlico, and the growth of machine tool firms like Naysmith, Whitworth, and others, showed that the time was right for mass production.

The short rifle is the most colorful of the Enfield arms, and also the rarest, as used in the United States service. Only "8,034 Enfield rifles, short, calibre .577, sword bayonet," are listed as having been procured at a cost of $187,915.09. But the long Enfield, three iron bands and a 39-inch barrel of .577 or .58 caliber, was unquestionably the most important. Not only were 428,-292 of them purchased by Schuyler, Hartley, or Naylor and Company, but many of those fine London Armoury guns shipped by Major Huse in blockade runners fell prey to "the anaconda" and were delivered to New York. First shipments were of the Ml853 model, obsolescent because of the spring bands.

As a rule, all Enfields were fitted for slings. The Ml853 long Enfield used a special sling, running from the loop attached to the front band, all the way back to the trigger guard. The later 1856 type of long Enfield has a similar sling arrangement, though the bands were screw fastened instead of spring held. The 1859 short rifle made use of the 1856 type of brass guard swivel, and a front band swivel as well. But some 1859 short rifles did not have the guard pierced for swivel loop. Instead, a wood screw was capped with a swivel and turned into the stock belly about midway between rear guard tang and buttplate. This was also generally true of carbines and musketoons of this style; the rear swivel was screwed into the butt stock, not attached to the trigger guard.Nearly all Enfields had ramrods held in by a spoon in the stock, and pushed out of line at the stock fore tip by a slightly raised aspect of the nose cap. This tended to grip the ramrod snug, but without the objections of ...

An unusual detail about the above-cited rifle is the state of finish on the metal. The surface is rust-pitted and brushed more or less bright, but when the bands were removed, the metal underneath was seen to be smooth and bright originally. Then the barrel was unstocked and on closer look it could be seen that the original finish was definitely Enfield-style, rust-browned or blacked. The bands, too, showed heat blue tints inside.

The mark “Tower” on an Enfield-type arm was apparently used more or less to deceive Northern purchasers as well as those of the South. It apears handstamped, without fixed location, on the locks forward of the hammer. The date may be either above or below the mark or, indeed, on some other part of the lock entirely. So far as can be determined, several of the Birmingham Gun Trade used “Tower” locks promiscuously on rifles and rifle muskets which they assembled for export. The export “Enfield” generally can be told from those made for the British Government, by the absence of the Broad Arrow mark on lockplate and barrel breech. Those barrels which bear the provisional (Fig. 10), the number 25 for gauge mark, then the definitive view mark (Fig. 11), another 25, and the definitive proof mark (Fig. 12), all Birming- Enfield cartridge’s powder was held in smaller bag inside  larger one. Bullet held wood plug supposed to be driven forward by force of explosion to expand lead into...

The third Enfield is a short 24-inch barrel musketoon, two bands, fitted with bayonet stud on the barrel. The stud has a short guide rib. (Front band is missing, but had a swivel.) It is unusual because, although marked as made by the London Armoury Company, it has a Belgian barrel. Beneath, the bottom is stamped (see Fig. 6) and on the top left quadrant, mingled with the British government crown and number stamps, is the mark of the Liege proof house: (see Fig. 7). The tube bears the London Proof House stamp 403, and, on top, the crown over crossed flags or pennons of the Enfield proof. The barrel on the bottom is also stamped l.a.c. in small letters, and the gun assembly or work number is 22, on both barrel and plug. The percussioning was done in England, and the lump bears a mark crown over a, while the top quadrant has a similar crown over vr (see Fig. 8). Erosion and flash pitting confounds the marks with false traces of other marks on the breech, but the top of the breech, as on...

Somewhat simpler is the complex of marks and stamps on a machine-made Potts & Hunt short rifle of similar design, but London made. The 33-inch barrel does not have a bayonet stud; instead, the stock is approximately four inches longer, the nose cap fitted 1%-inches from the muzzle. The front band is fixed with both screw tightener and a cross pin, and the bayonet lug is forged integral and machined out of the band metal. Located l 5 /a inches a works in Birmingham and a shop in London for some time during the early part of the 19th century. Breech detail of three different Enfield rifles. Top is long Enfield with rear sight near to line drawn forward of lockplate; bottom two are short two-band sword bayonet rifles, 33" barrels, which have sights farther forward out of photo view. Word TOWER may be above or below date; numerals may be Arabic or Italic, though latter is associated with Bagot Road Government factory in Birmingham also called “Tower.” Non-British government ...

First to be studied was a Birmingham-made “Tower” two-band artillery rifle, fitted with stud for sword bayonet. Brass buttplate, brass trigger guard (without provision for any swivel or sling loop), and brass nosecap, are bright; the iron barrel and iron bands are blued, the latter brightly polished and heat blued and the barrel rust “browned.” Lockplate and hammer were case hardened in mottled colors. The escutcheons at the side nails or screws were brass and bright, side nails hardened. The front band bore a sling swivel; the rear swivel base terminated in a wood screw and was twisted into the stock, which was of light beechwood. The lock outside mark is standard for military Birmingham arms, a crown over V * R (Fig. 1) behind the hammer, with the word tower below the bolster cut, the date 1862 surmounting tower, and in front of this, midway between the Tower mark and the hole for mainspring positioning pin or stud, the mark of government acceptance, a simple crown over an in- vert...

For the first three years of the Civil War, foreignmade weapons were bought, imported, and issued to Union and Confederate troops. Several arms became co-standard U. S. service arms, and are so indicated in the Atlas to the Official Records. Others were liberally damned in correspondence and battlefield reports by officers envious of the fine Springfield rifles of other regiments, but the record seems to indicate that, despite congressional investigations of their procurement and issue, foreign muskets put firepower into the hands of front line troops at a time when North and South were starved for infantry weapons. The foremost foreign arm was the British service rifle, made at Enfield RSAF and by private shops. The general pattern of Enfield Rifle, three-band rifled musket with band springs, adopted about 1853 by Great Britain, is found in a variety of forms which superficially are alike but which differ subtly. A detailed examination of three "typical" Enfield-patternsp...

Rapid fire inventions followed at a rapid pace. The nations of the world sought out Gatling and he was royally received wherever he went. His host Czar Nicholas treated him to a game of chess, and cautioned his best chess player to “let the Doctor win once or twice.” The master chessman later reported to the Czar that it was all he could do to win against the shrewd playing of the quiet physician who dealt in death. Russian General Gorloff was sent to Hartford to supervise the fabrication of the Gatling guns for the Czar. In the Colt plant a special section had been set aside to handle the increasing contracts of the Gatling Gun Company of Hartford. The good doctor moved up to Farmington Avenue, and bought a big house next door to Mrs. Colt’s Italian villa with the big plaster Uffizi dogs at the porte cochiere. In Hartford lived Gideon Welles, late Secretary of the Navy in Lincoln’s cabinet. He took a major interest in the Gatling Gun Company and became its Secretary and Treasurer. D...

Ager, Williams, Vandenberg, these have faded into history. The repeating gun most remembered from the war, and yet one which had a very confusing record of use therein, is that of Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling. I had the pleasure of witnessing how effectively Dr. Gatling had builded when I attended a meeting of the American Ordnance Association at Aberdeen the fall of 1957 . Mounted on a testing stand was a small bundle of barrels, dwarfed in seeming firepower by the huge cannon flanking it. But when the gunner pushed the button and that mighty mite whirred into action with a high-pitched snarling roar so rapidly that no individual explosions could even be sensed, I knew I had witnessed not only the world’s fastest-firing machine gun, and the world’s heaviest gun in weight of metal fired (a ton and a half in one minute), but a gun that was directly inspired by the Civil War special artillery General Butler bought from Dr. Gatling. First of Gatling’s guns was bulky wheeled carriage “c...

On the Confederate side, attempts to increase rate of fire, even as General Rains pleaded for more copper to make percussion caps, continued with all the in-genuity at their command. General Gorgas distinguished himself by the innovation of a repeating small-bore cannon, 1.25-inch, of the turret principle. The pancake turret held 18 copper-lined muzzle-loaded chambers, radiating outward spoke-like. The inner ring of the pancake held the percussion nipples. A cam arrangement loaded and tripped a striker successively as the turret was turned. Of special importance was a load- ing groove in the cast-iron gun chassis to the right of the barrel, in line with the direction of rotation of the pancake. Inserting cartridges at this point and working the charging lever, the gunner’s assistant could keep the turret constantly loaded. Apparently only one was made; none were used in the field.    - A straightforward approach to machine cannon design was used by the South in the s...

One of the best guns to see service was little spoken of after the War . Of simple design, the principle may have added nothing radically new to repeating arm construction, but it was a good gun, the Union volley gun of Wilson Ager. Sometimes called, after the fact it had a cartridge hopper like the hopper on a grinder, the “coffee mill gun,” this .58 steel-charger repeater was regularly supplied with two barrels. They were supposed to be alternated during use to prevent them from getting too hot; actually in test one of the guns was fired till the barrel glowed and bits of metal issued from the muzzle with each shot.

Instead, the Requa guns, five in all, purchased at a cost of $5,482.72 or about $1,100 each, were used by the Federal besiegers of Battery Wagner in front of Charleston, South Carolina, in August 1863 . The guns must have made a sort of ripping noise as the fire traveled outward in each direction from the middle, igniting successively each pair of cartridges till the last. They gave the Confederates very little trouble. A ser- Requa battery gun discharged  scythe-sweep of lead which would  interdict passage of covered bridge  by horse or footmen. Early “machine gun” was not a repeater ex cept so far as fresh clips of car tridges could be loaded, for simultaneous discharge.