Private Musket Makers

It was into this spirit that the Yankee private militia musket makers wandered. During the Cold War grand plans were laid for armories and arsenals all over the south. And oddly, the ones to suffer most when War finally came were the Northern munitions makers! The pattern of rifle most affected by these firms was a

Arms transferred to Southern U.S. armories or issued to States prior to 1860 included basic types shown here. Majority were flintlocks of 1821-22 pattern (top) but some had been converted to percussion in 1840’s by U.S. (2d from top). M1842 smoothbore muskets, original percussion, were also in lot and same model had been made in Dixie in 1852 (3d). Rifles included the popular “Mississippi” (shown elsewhere in this book) and earlier standard arms such as this .54 “common rifle” M1817. Shown is rifle by contractor N. W. Starr, Middletown, Ct., transformed to percussion by “French method” with cone directly into barrel. Muzzle-loading carbines on hand in South included this type, the U.S. M1855. Arm shown is West Point Museum gun, one of two prototypes reported made 1848 cal. .54, but identical issue arm of 1855 was cal. .58. 300 made 1855, without Maynard primer.

version resembling the Model 1841 “Mississippi rifle” or the U. S. Ml855 brass-trimmed Harpers Ferry rifle without the Maynard tape primer.

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The Gatling Gun

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...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

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CHAPTER 7 Injustice to Justice

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Civil War Guns

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