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Savage's Status

Within the company, Savage’s position was an odd one. A director, inventor, factory owner, and stockholder, he appears not to have had executive status.
Savage wanted to go to Washington to get the contract for the company; James Wheelock wanted to retain Thomas Dyer, of Washington, who had been a middleman in the first large beef contract handed out when the War started, to get the orders for them. Direct application to Washington seemed not to have proved fruitful for Wheelock, who testified that “all our (Wheelock’s) personal efforts to procure such a contract from the War Department had failed.” Dyer was authorized by Wheelock by his letter of September 9, , to obtain an order for 5,000 Savage pistols at $20 each, guaranteed deliveries 500 in October, 700 November, 1,000 in December , and 1,500 per month thereafter.

But at some date just before then, Savage, perhaps exasperated at Wheelock’s insistence on handling the business himself, wrote to General Ripley. He was well known in Washington and the letter must have come as no surprise; Ripley on September 10, , replied, apparently by telegram, ordering 5,000 “of your cavalry revolvers,” provided they be delivered at the rate of 1,000 per month. Savage in Middletown on the same day, 10 September, replied to Ripley accepting his terms. Secretary Wheelock and President Sebor refused to accept Savage’s contract, especially since he wanted compensation for it; they had committed themselves to paying $2 more or less to Dyer. Dyer originally wanted them to fix $22.50 as their contract price, saying he had in mind to apply for a pistol contract at that price. He implied he would then scout around and resell it by assignment to someone who manufactured pistols. Wheelock retorted their pistols weren’t worth more than $20 and that was the price they wanted to sell them for. Dyer was reassured on September 16 that he and he alone was authorized to treat for the Savage Revolving Firearms Company in the matter of a pistol contract.
On October 11, , General Ripley in accordance with the one-month proviso in his letter to Savage now notified the inventor that since the one month had elapsed with no deliveries, the order was annulled.
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