Rigdon and Ansley

In January, 1864, Rigdon, Ansley & Company was formed, but in the South things are done, as Mrs. Margaret Mitchell said, “more leisurely.” By a curious coincidence, the production delay in a baby and in a Colt-type revolver (the author has reason to know from making some thousands of the latter recently) is nine months. But in the South, as in Mrs. Mitchell’s great book, the gestation period for both babies and revolvers apparently was longer. It was not until March 13, for example, that water power was arranged for the shop; when at last Rigdon began to put up finished revolvers is not known but apparently he began cutting metal in March for power would not have been needed before then.

Ansley, though described by Rigdon as essential to the revolver business, was not judged so by the local draft board. Early in 1864 he was conscripted and eventually in January, 1865, advertised his one-fourth interest in “the pistol factory—a very desirable paying investment,” for sale. At the “desirable paying investment” Smythe organized the Rigdon Guards, himself as captain. The pistol workmen, some 60 hands, took part in the defense of another revolver factory, in the battle of Griswoldville, Georgia, November 22, 1864, and Smythe and others were wounded.
Another threat to the pistol factory by Yankee raiders in December made the plant a rallying point for home guards. Rigdon stuck to his guns and during February still was in operation, to judge from General Gorgas’ order to Colonel Burton to assume supervision over work at the Macon, Athens, Columbus, and Tallassee Armories and “the contract establishment of Rigdon & Ansley at Augusta.”
Rigdon’s Colt-type revolvers differ obviously from the Colt Navy Ml851 prototypes in having barrels turned round forward of the breech. Numbers are on butt strap front of guard strap, bottom of barrel breech, joining spot on frame like Colt, top inner flat of loading lever, and usually on the side of cylinder between two of the shoulders.
While the form of the handles is well shaped and very much like the Colt, the contour of the trigger guard differs and appears to be uniform throughout all known genuine Rigdon revolvers, of whatever place of origin. The radius inside is a little sharper at the rear of the trigger. A specimen in the author’s collection, while much rusted on the steel parts, is clean on the brass and shows a good amount of “mechanization” in the manufacture. The width of the trigger guard

Twelve cylinder stops and Navv-type loading lever latch distinguish this later Rigdon & Ansley revolver from earlier production, but trigger guard roots reveal same milling cut as first pistols. Finish was originally casehardened, frame and lever, with blued barrel and cylinder. Handle straps are brass.

was cut by a straddle-mill set-up to judge from remaining tool marks, and the back of the strap to which the mainspring attaches was profile milled. Filing or “striking up” in the white stage was very skillfully done. The main spring, though not polished, has been filed its length (to avoid cracking from cross-file cuts) and is neatly tapered in width and thickness to give a good spring action to the hammer. The serial number 964 is stamped with the “9” one space above the line of the “6.” An eighth inch below the serial is stamped d. Reading from the muzzle, the top barrel flat is stamped leech & rigdon csa and appears to set the production of the Confederate contract guns from at least this serial number. Albaugh states L & R are supposed to have made 350 pistols, approximately, in Columbus. Study of all Rigdon revolvers reveals there is no overlap and that apparently he began numbering in Columbus and continued in Greensboro and the same series in Augusta. The range recorded is as high as 2330, in the Milwaukee Public Museum.
With Jesse Ansley, Rigdon introduced a prominent design feature, an additional set of cylinder stop slots, making 12 in all. A further change, which had been introduced in the beginning of the CSA Leech & Rigdon contract, was the loading lever Navy latch. Early L & R revolvers have a latch captive in the lever with a cross pin for releasing, like the Yankee Starr pistols. No. 964 has the regular Navy latch, like a Colt Navy, but No. 899, carried by Colonel Harry Gilmor of the 2d Maryland (CSA) Cavalry, is the “Starr” latch. A further detail change seems to be in the exact filedup profile of the front of the barrel breech; on Rigdon, Ansley & Company guns this seems to assume more of a forward slant than most of L & R pistols; but a few L & R pistols are found with this shape.
The Rigdon, Ansley & Company 12-stoppers (a safety feature but causing considerable re-timing of the lock work to function right) do not bear the firm name, only CSA. That these are the products of Rigdon, and a continuation of Leech & Rigdon, was not understood some years ago, but was surmised by the failure of serials to be found overlapping. Yet the trigger guard form, distinctive once it is understood this guard was made by machine and in quantity and all alike, is a far more important clue to the maker’s identity.
Rigdon may have struggled to keep the plant going until the very end; at least one of these pistols is known with barrel and cylinder mounted upon a contemporaneous Colt Navy Ml851 frame and handle. The use of genuine Colt parts, where they would fit, is not unique among Confederate handguns; though uncommon, it did happen.