The complete story of Federal and Confederate small arms: design manufacture, identification, procurement, issue, employment,
effectiveness, and postwar disposal.
By WILLIAM B. EDWARDS
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Enfields Made in America
The Ml853 Enfield long rifle was first manufactured in the United States. In 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 “Enfield Commission” visited the Springfield Armory and toured the Yankee gun mills. Of particular interest to the British experts was the Robbins & Lawrence works in Windsor, Vermont. The Enfield Commissioners were following up an initial order for Enfields which the Robbins & Lawrence firm is said to have completed. No specimen of this contract, reported to have been 20,000 rifles, has come to the attention of the author, but it is believed to be the Tower Minie rifle.
This contract, it is thought, was completed, and the rifles delivered. The War in the Crimea does not record many uses of rifled British muskets, but a few of the new .577 Enfield type did get into service and when used, were very effective with their long range accuracy potential. Certainly when the Enfield Commission came to the United States, Robbins & Lawrence had every reason to expect some business. They were given another contract, this time for 25,000 rifles. The locks were marked Windsor, the crown, and . Presumably these were the Ml853 long Enfield, with bands spring-fastened; a specimen in the author’s collection is a short sergeant’s rifle. They pushed ahead with the work and laid plans to turn out a further order of 300,000 rifles, but the order never materialized.
Robbins & Lawrence supplied machinery to the Enfield works in England. This was the source of their own collapse, since the Royal Small Arms Factory took over the job for the Crown, and Robbins & Lawrence did not have either the agents to promote nor the facilities to cheapen their work, to compete with the Birmingham and Liege trades. The month to six weeks minimum shipping delay alone cut them out of the European-Eastem-African market, and their interests were placed in bankruptcy and sold at auction to Lamson, Goodnough & Yale.
Other machine companies in New England contributed to the Enfield works. Operating by , Enfield was turning out, by machinery, long rifles of excellent quality. They became the standard by which others were to be judged.
From the catalog of Wallis and Wallis, British gun auctioneers ( 1962 ) at Lewes in Sussex, we read of the sale of a Starr revolver: Lot 1060 ... A 6 shot .44 Starr SA Army Perc Rev 14", brl 8", No. 51594, the top strap bearing old engraving Col. Colt Address New York, Good Condition but action As Found & frame screw not orig . Eben T. Starr of Yonkers, New York, might not have smiled at this latter day whimsey. Marking his re volver with the name of the man he dared challenge by launching a new revolving pistol business in 1858 was to him not funny. Though the modern gun bug who fraudulently marked this in the hope someone would bite on it as a hitherto unknown Colt double action revolver we trust was unsuccessful in his piracy, per haps the buyer at the Wallis and Wallis auction cherishes his purchase for what it is: one of the best and most modem revolvers of the Civil War era. Though complex inside at first glance, its parts are well thought out and reveal Star...
You place me in a most embarrassing position, Mr. Secretary. How is that, Mr. Wilkeson? the gaunt-faced Penn sylvanian queried, the lines of his expression amplified by the fatigue and, somewhat, disappointment with which he laid down his role as Secretary of War for Mr. Lincoln. Because, Mr. Cameron, the newspaperman re sponded, your contract for rifle muskets with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, Connecticut is for only 25,000 arms, and my friends there, whom I induced to engage in this business in expectation of your issuing a further order, as your assistant Mr. Scott assured me you would, will be sorely embarrassed in their operations on this small amount. Indeed this is bad news to me, Mr. Wilkeson, War Secretary Simon Cameron sympathetically observed, as he stuffed papers from his desk drawer into a large portfolio, scanning them briefly, consigning some to the waste basket. But as you can see, I am leaving office today; I believe Mister Stanton, who repla...
French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...
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