Richmond and Fayetteville Production

While Burton preferred the Enfield, the Springfield influence of the tools at Richmond and Fayetteville persisted in Confederate small arms design. At Fayetteville Armory, the Ml 855 type machinery had been in production. The first issue of arms was put up on the stocks from the Maryland troops, which appear to have been fully finished for the long range rifle; the two-band model with the patchbox mortised out to hold a special front sight ring with crossed wires. This ring slipped over the muzzle, fastened with a set screw, and placed crosshairs on the foresight for
super-accurate aiming. As some stocks had been mortised for the Maynard primer lockplates, sufficient profiled but un-mortised lockplates were sent along of the “humpback” variety to finish up these rifles. If a modified 1861 lockplate was fitted to the cut-out Ml855 stock, there would be great danger of water getting into the lock mechanism, to its considerable detriment.

More common an example of the Fayetteville rifle is that found with the distinctive S hammer. Suggesting a modified continental form of hammer, the style also suggests the workmanship of some A. H. Waters & Company percussion pistols resembling the Ml836, converted, that collectors have discovered recently. Whether the complete set of forging dies for hammer was of North Carolina origins, or bought in the North, cannot be determined. That it is characteristic, cannot be denied. The author once owned a Deringermarked Common Rifle, much polished, that had been bought in a Liege gun shop. From indications it was assumed the rifle had been imported as Civil War surplus years ago. However, it had been transformed to percussion by a bolster conversion. The hammer was a diminutive Fayetteville hammer, scaled down a little for the smaller rifle-sized lock of the 1817 Common Rifle.
One or two examples of pistol-carbines are found with the same humpback lockplate of the earliest
arms, and a special hammer of rather straight form, not curved like the Ml855, nor of the S shape. The lockplates are obviously of the 1855 tape primer form but without the mortising for Maynard works; otherwise, they are common M1855 pistol carbines. Locks are dated at the rear, 1862, and before the hammer the word FAYETTEVILLE and an eagle stamp, unlike the Harpers Ferry Pistol-Carbine eagle stamp, the eagle facing dexter. The H-F eagle faces sinister, but is turned away from the arrows, sign of War. This eagle appears also on the FAYETTEVILLE rifles, in both cases surmounting C.S.A. An old tale of Bannerman’s is that the die was from Harpers Ferry and the USA was cut out and CSA substituted. This die appears to be like the Harpers Ferry Ml842 stamps.
Richmond and Fayetteville supplied the majority of long guns of Confederate manufacture. Brass bands on Fayetteville rifles, iron M1855-61 type on Richmond arms is the rule; both series may have brass buttplates, the existing iron ones believed to be captured plates and forgings worked up. In spite of the scarcity of copper in the South, skilled labor was in even shorter supply. Eventually the manpower scale was to overbalance in favor of the North and the South went under. But this shortage of men, not arms, was recognized early on the production front.
The decision to use brass, valuable for percussion caps and eventually planned to be used in cartridge

Extensive gauging was to be introduced in South’s production scheme by Macon Enfield factory. Gauge set shown is from Enfield Armory.

Col. Burton contracted with Greenwood & Batley for South’s armory. Tools were shipped to Nassau before War’s end. Later, Southern ordnance genius worked with G. & B. on Russian rifle contract making Berdan II breechloader (above) of 1871.