The Old Armory Fire

About 7 a.m. February 5, 1864, a fire was discovered in one of the drying lofts where wood cured under the skylighted roof of the Old Armory. The flames glinted through, shattered the skylights and the draught roared like a Bessemer, light spattered against the dark winter’s dawn. Within the armory, the hungry tongues of flame raced as fast as a man could walk along the oilsoaked floors, curled in hot embrace around the riveted wrought-iron columns, and blistered the buff-colored Portland stone. The great steam flywheel slowly spun to a halt as smoke and flame crossed to the power house roof and licked avidly at the tallow-soaked oxhide belting. A veritable fuse pattern throughout the building, daubed with lubricant and tracing a lane from flammable roof to floor to each machine, the belting burned. In the parts room heat rose to melt brass, but not iron. Handle straps, bullet moulds, loading plungers, and trim, fused into glowing putty that meshed in the matrix cylinders from Dragoons, nipple wrenches, Navy moulds, and pocket model barrels returned from London and held as spares. The lard oil used to drench the machine-tool cutters, the sperm oil in the bluing department, the heavy grease in the maintenance room blended in a towering pyre of flame that seemed a belated pagan send-off to the soul of the late colonel, who in his lifetime had never carried insurance—and never had a fire.

With the ice-choked Connecticut River a stone’s throw away, the fire fighting equipment somehow was not on hand when needed. With a great crash and sparks seen miles away the three top floors of the Old Armory subsided into the basements, while tons of irreplaceable machinery and essential patterns were consumed in the blaze. And so Colt’s Armory burned. Behind the fire lines, stood thousands of Hartfordites, warmed by the flames. Root was there, and Richard Jarvis, muffled up and still in his night-clothes.
The H-construction of the factory with the New Armory or musket factory as the second limb of the letter, connected only by a thin passageway, saved the rifle muskets. Only the original armory built in 1855 along the river was destroyed, and much of the office building adjoining on Van Dyke Avenue. While Jarvis calculated the actual loss at about % of a million dollars, the stock on hand was vastly more valuable, and as he put it, they would not have taken a million dollars in cash for the armory the night before, for what was destroyed was the production line for the New Model Army .44, “the best pistol by all odds I (Colt) have ever made for military purposes.” In 1863 Colt had made 136,579 pistols; in 1864 by the end of the year, the Old Armory, rebuilt, turned out 10,406.
As previously described, in 1864 Colt’s factory burned to the ground. Photos of the ruins reveal the total destruction of the world’s biggest private armory. The New Model Army revolver equipment was totally destroyed, but the emergency continued. From the ruins, with the assistance of many of the models and papers saved in the nearby office and in the lofts of the musket buildings which did not bum, the great pistol was returned to production.
Close examination has not narrowed down the serial of the first “post fire” NMA, but it should be in the range of about 150,000. Soon after this the so-called “Civilian Model” made its appearance. While this model is actually a clear concession to the fact Uncle Sam wasn’t buying any more shoulder stocks, collectors have confused it with the idea the gun was designed, stockless, for “civilians and officers.” The type was merely regular production after the fire. Closer study of serials should narrow this fact. One example in the 90,000 series is known; but 90,495 is cut! But the shoulder stock idea died hard. No. 176660 is fitted with a stock numbered 17660, which does not hook under the breech like the true Colt’s Patent stocks. Instead, it has a small steel hook that notches into the backstrap, and the Colt-type bottom catch for the butt. The gun is apparently post-fire, “Civilian Model,” and whether the stock was fitted at Colt’s in 1865, or many years later, is impossible at present to say truly.
Post-fire, the barrel stamp appears a little “larger” in appearance but almost identical in dimensions. Dash terminals end it, and the marking reads the same. A very few Colts 1860 New Model Army are also found numbered with an “L” preceding the serial, and stamped address col colt London. These were marked for sale through the Colt London agency managed until after the War by Charles Frederick Dennett and Baron von Oppen.

These modem drawings are ink reconstructions from fragmentary engineering drawings in pencil made at Colt’s Armory during the War. They show prototype forms of army-sized hinged frame revolvers having long handle required by Board of Officers of 1860 but sidehammer design and stronger frame. No models appear to exist; drawings only survived the fire but author suggests this was planned to replace the Ml860 pistol in production after November, 1863. From Hintlian document collection.

The New Model Army died hard. Favorite with frontiersmen, it was transformed by Springfield Armory and Colt’s factory to cartridge shooting. Modified, it became a distinctive cartridge pistol, the Model 1872. And while the factory went back to the Navy handle for the great Frontier, not everybody approved the choice. Special long Army-like handles were fitted to target frontiers. And the Bisley handle strap is very much the proportions of the Army strap turned inside out!
Was it a bad gun? To the engineer interested in technical details, in contrast with the solid frame models of the competition, yes. But there were no kicks from the using services. The Yankee cavalry were glad to “give ’em a jolt with a Colt.” The competition was more dangerous, and also, Root and Horace Lord, works superintendent replacing Root when the latter was elected president, had forced a gosh-awful lot of New Model Armys down Uncle Sam’s throat.
For the first time reproduced in any firearms history book are the reconstruction drawings appended hereto, of the never-issued New Model .44 holster revolver that would have combined solid frame accuracy and strength, and metallic cartridge breech-loading capability in one basic construction. These drawings are our own completion of pencil and ink sketches preserved from destruction during one of the periodical pulpings of Colt factory records which depleted our historical sources along the Connecticut River from time to time. These sketches contain nothing basic which do not occur in the original drawings, but the originals from the John Hintiian Collection of Arms Memorabilia are too faint for reproduction.
They form the “missing link,” we believe, to what Root and Lord were doing before the fire.
They were readying the works to fabricate a new model of arm, a model so secret that it could not be heralded in advance until prototypes had been built and pilot production run through. Admittedly, this supposition sounds like the guff penned some twentyfive years ago to sell four or five fraudulent “Paterson Walker” so-called “Colts,” but we have nothing here to sell; just pencil drawings to which we have taken the liberty of adding completed barrel assemblies where a percussion gun is obviously drawn, or the hammer profile from one incomplete sketch to another more complete. It was to be a sidehammer revolver, of the type Root liked, though the patents on the earlier sidehammer revolvers produced by Colt’s were not taken out nor invented by him. In the grip form and location of the trigger guard, the relation to the New Model Army proportions at once becomes evident. While both are illustrated as percussion cylinders, the potential for fitting cartridge cylinders is obvious. The rammer is apparentiy hinged, but of the profile of the New Model series. The barrel is fixed by a cross wedge in the front frame, as in the other sidehammer pistols. Releasing the cylinder for tipping the barrel down, or upwards, is apparentiy accomplished by pulling back on the center pin, the knob of which is shown behind the hammer spur. The sideplate and hammer are arranged as in the other sidehammer guns.
This frame conception is an advance upon the earlier sidehammer military pistols, being less bulky and more consistent with the approved form of the New Model .44. The solid handle frame with grips in two pieces is unusual but not unique for a Colt of this period, but the shape of the handles suggests a Remington, Rogers and Spencer, or any one of several other competitive makes. The proportions of the pistol indicate it is .44; the engineering drawings, which were full scale, show it to be about the same size as the New Model Army. The facts about this 8-inch pistol, no model of which is known, seem to have been one of the bits of Coltiana which actually did perish in the fire.
What the causes may have been for the failure of Root to sell more Armys to the Government is unknown. The musket works hummed day and night but pistol production in 1864 was a bare 10,406. The Trade had been hit hard with the sudden collapse of Colt’s as a supplier. By the end of April at least they had not yet delivered any guns. From Louisville, Kentucky, wholesaler John Griffith & Son wrote on April 28, 1864: “We would take it as a favor if you would inform us about the time that you will probably be prepared to fill orders for pistols.”
The lack of endorsement on this letter prevents any supposition as to when they could deliver, but the totals shipped that year make delivery prior to September, 1864, very unlikely. That some service was maintained is shown by a letter to Elisha Colt, Sam’s uncle who had a financial interest in the endeavor and apparently rallied to help the old firm in its emergency. Sidehammer pocket pistol owner William Reed from Maine asked to obtain, for his gun No. 17637, “a small key with wedge to hold the cylinder pin in.” Elisha was apparently a little new at the game and endorsed this, “Do not understand your description. Please send pistol and we will repair it at once.”
The Wartime output of Colt’s in the New Model Series included the following patterns:

1. The New Navy .36, a streamlined creeping lever pistol en suite with the Army .44, but of course Navy size handle. A very few of these, probably under 100, had been made up with a special pattern of full fluted cylinder, when the change occurred to the smooth Navy-scene stamped cylinder in the Army series, so the Navy was changed to the Old Model cylinder to keep it uniform. Military deliveries included 1,000 New Model Navy at $22.50 February 17, 1862, and 1,000 more April 2. An added 56 were bought January 26, 1863, at $15, while commercial arms already in the trade were taken at varying retail prices when needed by the purchasing officers. About 40,000 New Model Navys were made.
2. New Model Police Pistol and New Model Pocket Pistol of Navy Caliber. Though appearing in two forms, this is, we believe, a basic model which was supplied during the War indiscriminately. The basic

Production during War included large-guard Ml851 Navy .36 with octagon barrel and streamlined New Navy .36 using barrel and lever of New Model Army. The barrel shaping setups are almost identical except for diameters to the NMA .44 and loading lever and plunger interchange, except the .36 plunger end is turned smaller.

pistol is the Pocket Model 1849 with rebated cylinder. In the New Model streamlined barrel, the loading levers are esthetically uniform with the 7 1/2 -inch Navy and first type Army pattern; the small framed barrels are all to half-inch lengths, viz.: 4 1/2-inch, 5 1/2 -inch, 6 1/2-inch. The rebated cylinder allowed fitting 5-shot chambers of .36 caliber, and the bores enlarged to this size. The factory designation was simply “New Model Small .36 Cal.”
That this pistol, called by collectors “Model 1862,” was ready in 1860 is reflected by a letter from Colt to Commodore James Smith, U.S.N., Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks at Washington. Dated April 25, 1860, the note refers to “one of our new model increased caliber,” and states: “I caused to be got ready the pocket pistol for you with all the necessary fixings some two months since ...” The round barrel creeping lever rammer pistols of this type seem uniformly to have cylinders partly fluted between chambers, on the enlarged portion of the cylinder body. A variant of this rebated frame is what, after the War, Colt’s parts lists shows was termed “New Model Pocket Pistol of Navy Caliber.” The cylinder is rebated, smooth, with stage-coach scene, octagon barrel. It is suggested by reading the voluminous numbers of orders from buyers all over the country who ordered these pistols by barrel lengths, to differentiate one model from another, as “NM 4 1/2-inch” could not be mistaken for any other pistol, that both variations are the same factory model. It is believed Colt shipped both types indiscriminately to purchasers at the same price, and though both types seem to run to about 38,000 serial numbers, and both have low numbers, no duplicate numbers have as yet been noticed. The inference they were numbered in the same series is inescapable.
It was to the original creeping lever “New Model Small .36” that a great honor almost occurred, in January of 1861. During the fall preceding, Colt campaigned on the Stephen A. Douglas ticket for the governorship of Connecticut. He resisted the notion that

New Model Pocket Pistol of Navy Caliber was .36 design built on .31 Pocket ’49 frame by same size-increasing tricks as used in NMA .44 on .36 frame. Round cylinder is usually linked with octagon barrel but barrel lengths in 1/2" sizes (4 1/2, 5 1/2, 6 ¹/2) allowed this secondary pattern to be shipped on same orders as new improved round barrel fluted cylinder pistol which had creeping lever and was also offered with 4 1/2, 5¹/2, 6 1/4-inch barrels.

assistants as the first token of victory, when he should be inaugurated in Hartford on the New Year’s, a handsome cased pistol. The gun was the ordinary New Model Small .36 Cal., but the case was no ordinary case. Handsomely bound in embossed gold-stamped leather, it had the presentation marking “Jany 1st 1861” and “Dedicated by the Author to . . . ” The title, sentiments which gave Colt 80,000 Connecticut votes, and lost him the governor’s chair: “Colt on the Constitution, Higher Law, and Irrespressible Conflict.” Few indeed were the book-cases ever presented, and the occasions sad ones, for they were tokens of aid, and remembrances of failure.
That Colt was politically sensitive, as just stated, is revealed by his action in the case of the Hartford name stamps. The first of the New Model Armys had the Hartford barrel stamp, but they were not unique. This mark was applied uniformly to all of Colt’s arms —then changed back to the New York stamping.
A puzzle to collectors has been the presence of the words address col. colt—Hartford on barrels for the octagon pocket pistols—Old Model Pocket and New Model Pocket Pistol of Navy caliber, and upon the Navy 1851 barrels of pre-Civil War manufacture. One historian, Perry Schumaker, (Colt’s Pocket Pistols, Fadco, Cal.) suggested the Hartford guns were refinished arms actually of British manufacture, and that they were so marked that Sam could determine if those made of “English steel” were satisfactory or not, by the frequency of the word Hartford appearing in connection with repairs. That this is not necessarily a true solution is shown by London agent Charles Dennett’s letter of December 21, 1860, addressed to one of the allies, John P. Moore & Sons of New York. Dennett, in following Sam Colt’s instructions, had boxed up and prepared to ship to Moore “all the American manufactured Colts arms ... I have sent 49 cases marked [CC] #1/49 J. P. Moore & Sons New York, containing 2,000 Navy revolvers & etc. . . .
I will add for your guidance that the first 16 cases were part of 1 to 41 inclusive sent as nearly as I can ascertain (by invoice) on or about 1st of July, 1857, by the New York steamer to Bremen, consigned to Charles Caesar ...”
Of this lot, some were parts of arms and were reshipped back to New York later, while 16 cases remained to become part of the invoice to J. P. Moore. These 16 cases contained an assortment of arms: “These pistols, viz, 300 Navys & 750 Small (Pocket Pistols, probably 4-inch) are Hartford make & bear the stamp address col colt Hartford—
“The 1,700 with moulds & wrenches in cases #17/49 are also American make—but stamp address col colt London—& have been refinished here by hand & proved here—but are of American manufacture ...”
A solution to the problem of the different Hartford vs New York marking is suggested in Lieutenant (later Major) William B. Hartley’s letter to Col. Colt from Washington of November 18, 1860. Hartley, along

Elisha Root supported worthy causes, donated sidehammer pistol to Metropolitan Fair in New York conducted by U.S. Sanitary Commission, the “Red Cross” of the American Civil War. French-type casing may have been obtained from Schuyler, Hartley & Graham.

there would be War; preparations for the New Armory that was to make muskets were made in the faith that a “cold War” would give him rich profits. His efforts to line up parts and barrels through Jarvis for a militia musket showed his earlier thinking. Since 1808, the Federal Congress had appropriated annually $200,000 “for equipping and arming the militia.” Colt had gotten his share of that in the mid-50’s. But with the breaking away of the Southern states, with each state planning to set up its own army, muskets would be needed. Not only Colt, but P. S. Justice, Orison Blunt, Henry, Whitney and others, seem to have acted in this assumption, preparing prototypes or limited issue militia muskets which met with more or less success, as the Cold War turned to hot. Colt felt that Democratic leadership in Washington would do much to allow the Southern states, who were adamant, to go their way in peace, and to hold many of those, such as the great Old Dominion of Virginia, that were not so hotly tempered. His willingness to change the barrel marking from “Hartford” back to New York reveals his sensitivity to political matters.
He made a survey of the principal workmen in his armory, setting opposite each name in a little book a red mark for “Black Republican” or a blue mark for the Democrats. But his donations, his campaigning, though it polled him over 80,000 votes, did not bring him the governorship. Never one to enter a race in despair, he had intended to give his colleagues and

Marcellus Hartley offered morale-boosting, gaudily decorated pistols in his Wartime catalog. Special cast handles were made by Louis Tiffany, noted N.Y. sculptor. Handle detail (inset) shows allegorical figure on cast silver handle of New Model Police Pistol presented to Ibrahim Pasha, Governor of Adrianople, by Abraham Lincoln. Set of guns is now in Roosevelt Hyde Park Library; handle is by another sculptor, Ward.

with his adroit prosecution of Colt’s arms and welfare among the military men in the Capital, also gathered information on the temper of the times which he relayed back to Hartford.
“You may rely upon it that not only will numbers of Southern states secede, but that they will pass retaliatory laws with reference to all the states that have prevented the execution of the fugitive slave law by their pennal (sic) bills. It will become therefore a matter of grave consideradon for you to decide as to (the) policy of having Colts arms hail from the City of New York, rather than from the State of Connecticut—from the very town where Wide Awakes originated ...”
Hartley’s fear was a very real one of commercial uncertainty. In those insular days when the provincial, narrow outlook was the norm, the dread effect of boycott might be brought to bear on goods labeled as to some origin that proved noxious in the consumer’s mind. If Colt, in going to a normal trade stamping of address col. colt—Hartford, which serial numbers on Pocket Pistols and the Navy model indicate he did do about 1858, was risking loss of business in the South, Hartley felt it essential to call his attention to the fact. The Wide Awakes, a group of youthful Republican boosters whose distinguishing mark was the wearing of the wide-brimmed soft low-crown felt hat of the same name, had been organized in September, 1860, in Hartford. Wide Awake groups sprang up in many other Northern towns, parading, arousing martial spirit, damning the Southern Democrats and secession sentiment.
In urging the colonel to take care lest he lose supremacy in the Southern market, Hartley was not being disloyal to the Union cause. The temper of the times moved rapidly in those days of 1860, and not all wanted War, on either the side of the North, or the South. Many hoped that moderate tempers would prevail and, if secession occurred, that it would occur in peace. Manufacturers of all goods were looking to a continuance of their markets. Colt’s factory and supply program was geared to an existing expanding market. A sudden contraction of it by means of an unpredictable Southern boycott on his Hartfordstamped guns would have put him near bankruptcy. His business correspondence often indicated how important to him the solvency of his accounts receivable were on the first and fifteenth of every month, when his large payroll fell due. His trade agreements were all made with a view to receiving payments regularly to enable him to meet that payroll. Having a lot of unsold guns thrown back upon him would endanger his payroll and cash reserve, causing him to lose workmen. A strict manager, Colt demanded that his men work for him a full ten hours a day “during the running of the (steam) engine,” and “aneyone who dus not care to do so, need not apply for wirk.” Equally, he demanded of himself the same strict, just accountability to his men, and he would meet his payroll.
The safest thing was to restore the stamping of New York, which he did on pocket and Navy arms, keeping it through the duration and for some dozen years thereafter until the introduction of cartridge models again required new barrel stamps and the management felt sectional passions were subsided enough to risk the true office address on the barrels. The new mark, in one line, was: address col. saml
COLT, NEW YORK, US AMERICA.
Arms seen with the Hartford mark include the New Model .44 Army revolvers as well as the Navy ’51 and the Pocket series. Dennett may have returned some of these Army .44 Hartford guns to Hartford during that December of 1860. As stated, on December 21 he wrote of shipping 300 Navys made in Hartford and stamped address col. colt Hartford, along with 750 pocket pistols of the same Hartford-stamped nature. After Christmas, Dennett wrote to Colt concerning a following shipment to go out “by the Asia to New York on the 5th of January, contents: 150 Armys, 450 Navys, 510 4-inch (unfinished—276 proved), 250 5-inch, 150 6-inch, 1,510 in all, with mould and wrenches ...” No mention is made of Hartford marking in this lot and it is possible the only pistols received in London were those Dennett returned in December of 1860, they having lain unopened in Bremen and London since being shipped from Hartford in December of 1858. But it is possible, in view of the efficiency with which Colt often supplied the London office with a quantity hot off the machines of the latest models, that the “150 Armys” listed were fluted cylinder New Model Armys—for some of these are known bearing Hartford barrel stamps.
Those guns sent to Moore, one of the Colt Allies, very likely went into the trade with some destined for the South. “I fear our Allies have been indulging their Southern customers to their fullest ability,” wrote Hartley to Colt, without any trace of fear of any kind in his letter. Swords and belts, ordered from

Lincoln presented most beautifully decorated Armies in world to King of Norway and Sweden, and to King of Denmark. One of Swedish pair is shown. Gold inlay is highest quality: grip carving is Scandinavian symbolism. Beehive signifies industriousness, anchor and scythe are fishing and farming.

Navy 1851 was elaborately engraved and inlaid in mid-fifties but is supposed to have been planned for presentation to Abraham Lincoln. Special carved grip was not completed until War president’s death, so ribbon presumably to bear dates of his service in office is marked with day of assassination.

Ames, by Moore, were to be shipped on South, said Hartley, “to Lamar, at Savannah, by steamer from New York, & the pistols if you get his answer. Please instruct J. P. Moore & Sons if he is to insure or not. Lamar will probably write an answer as to cannon, and if required, Ames will make them at 40^ (40^ per pound) . . So many of the fluted cylinder Army ,44’s, Hartford and New York stamp, have turned up in Southern museums or from Southern sources as to cause some experts to consider it almost a “Secondary Confederate pistol” by association.
In the Pocket Pistols, Schumaker suggests not more than 6,000 Hartford-stamped guns were made, in 4inch, 5-inch, and 6-inch lengths. The earliest Hartford stamp observed was #164,816, while the highest he observed was #205,975. He rightly places the production period embracing this range from 1858 to

Cases for Colts varied. Top set of Wartime Navy 36’s is enigmatically marked “Division AideDe-Camp.” Original owner is unknown (from Jonathan Peck colln). Center is set of New Model Navys belonging to Gen. Phil Sheridan. Both this set and Navy 51’s above have proper Navy Colt flask with set. Eagle handles are carved with names of battles in which Sheridan fought: Booneville, Chaplin Hills,

Stone’s River. Bottom set, in Chernoff collection, is said to have belonged to Gen. George A. Custer during War. Pistols are New Model Navy 1861 caliber .36, but cased with Army size flask and U.S.-inspected government bullet mould, subsequently silver plated. Absence of Navy scene on cylinders suggests casing was done outside Colt factory, perhaps at Schuyler, Hartley & Graham.

Post-fire New Model Army ,44’s are “civilian models” without cut in breech for stock. Highly finished pair in Smithsonian Institution have Tiffany grips with scenes of Union cavalry victorious in battle.

some time in 1861. Two sub-types of Hartford pocket pistols are tabulated: those with large rounded brass trigger guards spanning the production range, while some with large iron trigger guards have been observed in the brackets 185,200 to 186,000, and again in the 205,000 group. Though the subject is rife with bad guesses at best, those in the lowest group would appear to have included 750 shipped to Caesar at Bremen, thence reshipped still packed to London and two years later returned, still in their original cases, to New York for sale by J. P. Moore & Sons. The Hartford-stamped guns of 1861 “production” may have included some of the parts of arms shipped abroad and given the same runaround, for as Dennett wrote (December 21, 1860), “Cases 21 to 41, parts of arms, were re-shipped direct from Bremen to New York by Messrs. Miner & Co. December 1858 by order of Mr. Good ...” And in the arms which he returned to Moore in December of 1860, as stated, were “510 4-inch, unfinished, 276 proved.”
These are not more precisely described, so it is impossible to say whether they bore the name stamping or not. If they did bear London stamping, and were numbered, they may have included pistols that were to become oddities, two-line London-stamped guns of obviously non-London make, numbered in the Hartford-factory series (one #143,631 is known in the Art Livingston collection), and unproved since they never were issued from the British agency. Of the 510, 276 Dennett stated were proved—but evidently still in the white state, not blued. The remainder without British proof marks would not have been additionally stamped, merely blued and sold, after their receipt in Hartford. The demand for Colt’s arms was so great, and the stamping of the name so deep, that it seems doubtful Colt would have bothered to erase the London stamping if already affixed, before finishing for the American market.
Some London-stamped guns made such a lengthy itinerary in their transshipping that their freight must have eaten up all of Sam’s profits! As to the Hartfordstamped pocket models, at least one Sam Colt found a ready sale for in the “South.” It was a 4-inch 6-shot .31, serial number not now recorded, with the engraving on the butt of U. S. Police Balto Md. Sam sold the gun to be used by the special police set up by General Nathaniel Banks when in 1861 his troops “saved Maryland for the Union.” The Baltimore police proved adept at sequestering guns which Banks had ordered turned in, and they had to be replaced with more reliable law enforcers. In this interregnum, a newspaper reporter penned a plea to Colonel Colt asking for one of his pistols to protect said reporter in “this most miserably governed city,” but Colt answered by what must have been a small sale of Hartford-stamped Pocket ’49’s to General Banks’ men. Not even the very town where “Wide Awakes originated” could exceed the anathema in which the Yankees were held by the Baltimoreans.
It is said, “The credit for the revolver goes to Colt; to the way they were made, to Root.” The labors of Elisha Root took their toll on him as they did on Colt and on July 5, 1865 Root died. Though he helped Colt to make revolvers, it was to him alone that credit for the Rifle Muskets goes. The date was symbolic, for it was the fourth anniversary of Colt’s rifle musket contract. As it was said of another, so were both Colt and Root: “First in War.”