Hagner's Outcry

Major Hagner received the arms, which went directly from the docks to his warehouses, Collector of Customs Hiram Barney having been instructed to pass Boker’s goods, destined to the United States, free. The November 7 shipment was distributed to troops by Hagner at once. A following shipment arrived via the Saxonia from Hamburg, about 10,000 rifle muskets (these apparently were Austrian guns, mentioned by Caleb Huse). Of these, 2,300 Austrian .69 and 1,656 French .69 were issued to the State of New York. At once a minor sort of hell broke out and Hagner asked Ripley querulously “Are the arms to be accepted by me without inspection?”
The State of New York had returned a few specimens of what were in the Boker arms cases, and the “French” proved to be old arms, some rifled but without sights, and one model altered from flint with patent breech, with sights. “As both are roughly made and second hand, since alteration, their value here should not exceed $7 and $8.” The Austrian arms were an even more mixed lot:

Rifles that Hagner and New York authorities complained of were altered and secondhand. Gun shown is believed typical of this lot, caliber .69 rifled with 1830 dated flint barrel and Augustin lock transformed to percussion using cast iron hammer roughly finished. Piece is reasonably good in appearance, and presence of stampings on bands resembling fraudulent Mexican Eagle marks registered as trade insignia of a Liege firm suggest gun was built for sale to Mexican state governor and diverted into lucrative American trade. Gun uses Austrian components but is finished like an Enfield.

. . . bayonets, locks and rods very common; three modes of attachment for the bayonets; locks old flint, patched in some cases; rods of iron, and some with small ends; Barrels, old flint with small cone-seat brazed on and rivetted, plug in old vent. Mixed with the barrels of usual length are many short barrels, 33 inches long. Such guns are of little or no value and ought not to be imported. Some of the French arms were issued yesterday (Dec. 1) to a regiment before departing, but I have requested General Welch to detain the Austrian until I receive your instructions. Wright’s certificates of inspection embrace, I believe, all of these arms, but it is evident that no proper inspection was made, as one of the bayonets snapped into three pieces upon very slight pressure in my hands . . .
Ripley did not answer the heavy-handed Major Hagner, who the next week wrote again crying “I now have three large storehouses filled or filling with arms.” Still, no answer, and Boker kept on passing guns through customs and into Hagner’s warehouses. Prior shipments, which he had tried to issue, choked them to the ceilings. From the lot of Austrians which the State of New York refused, he had culled out 1,524 short Austrian muskets, triangular bayonets, .70 caliber 33-inch barrels.
“They are altered from flintlock by priming and brazing on the cone seat,” he mistakenly reported, apparently being not too familiar with the Consol-Augustin locks. Transformation of the Augustin lock guns (which Austria had been phasing out of service with the issue of the new Lorenz original percussion series) produced an altered lockplate which the average gun expert might identify as a “flintlock, now altered.”
Boker, meanwhile, wanted to be paid for their guns. The deliveries were regular and tons of arms were piling up in Hagner’s warehouses for their account. By January 10, 1862 Ripley got around to writing to Cameron asking for a copy of the Boker contract, actually Cameron’s letter of 5 September. On February 10 Boker, shocked perhaps but being entirely businesslike, sent to the new Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, copies of all correspondence and documents relative to their order. At once an inspection was ordered of the different types of arms Boker had so far delivered, and it was then that Major Crispin examined 11 different samples and made his report of February 13, 1862, from which descriptions have already been cited.