Texas Fights Alone

In the Trans-Mississippi area after the fall of Vicksburg, supplies to Confederate forces in the West were cut off. But the western Confederacy was very much self-sustaining. More capacity for manufacturing existed there than has generally been recognized. Small manufactures in part owed their genesis to the large German population of thrifty and skilled farmers and craftsmen who had settled there in the 1840’s. By the end of the War one of the largest armories in the South had been begun at Tyler, Texas; construction plans for 1866 were surprisingly large. In a town which is now a suburb of Dallas, Lancaster, a pistol factory was started which had a capacity of 200 Colt-type revolvers monthly. Southwest of Galveston at Marion (now East Columbia) good-quality revolvers were made by machinery in quantity.
Actual production levels reached were far short of the needs of the times. But domestic manufacture in any War has only been supplementary to the arms in being at the commencement of the War. It is an axiom of warfare that weapons not in being at the beginning of the conflict, or procured or produced very soon thereafter, will be of little effect and influence during the next few years. In Texas, production lead time, spiralling prices or machinery and metals, and impressment of skilled hands into the Army, all contributed to low production rates.
Distance had created the autonomy of Texas and the autonomy had created the will of Texans to handle their own affairs. Thus the Act of January 11, 1862 created the Military Board of Texas, an Ordnance committee to spend $500,000 for buying and manufacturing arms; to establish a cannon foundry, and to appoint agents to oversee these operations. The board members were Governor F. R. Lubbock, Comptroller C. R. Johns, and Treasurer C. H. Randolph of Texas. This board was to greatly affect the fortunes of a Northern engineer, A. S. Clark, the family of Labon E. Tucker, Joseph E. Sherrard, and Pleasant Taylor. Embroiled in their activities was the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, John M. Crockett, ultimately concerned with the very peculiar failure of the Lancaster pistol makers.

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CHAPTER 17 The Starr Rises

From the catalog of Wallis and Wallis, British gun auctioneers ( 1962 ) at Lewes in Sussex, we read of the sale of a Starr revolver: Lot 1060 ... A 6 shot .44 Starr SA Army Perc Rev 14", brl 8", No. 51594, the top strap bearing old engraving Col. Colt Address New York, Good Condition but action As Found & frame screw not orig . Eben T. Starr of Yonkers, New York, might not have smiled at this latter day whimsey. Marking his re volver with the name of the man he dared challenge by launching a new revolving pistol business in 1858 was to him not funny. Though the modern gun bug who fraudulently marked this in the hope someone would bite on it as a hitherto unknown Colt double action revolver we trust was unsuccessful in his piracy, per haps the buyer at the Wallis and Wallis auction cherishes his purchase for what it is: one of the best and most modem revolvers of the Civil War era. Though complex inside at first glance, its parts are well thought out and reveal Star...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

You place me in a most embarrassing position, Mr. Secretary. How is that, Mr. Wilkeson? the gaunt-faced Penn sylvanian queried, the lines of his expression amplified by the fatigue and, somewhat, disappointment with which he laid down his role as Secretary of War for Mr. Lincoln. Because, Mr. Cameron, the newspaperman re sponded, your contract for rifle muskets with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, Connecticut is for only 25,000 arms, and my friends there, whom I induced to engage in this business in expectation of your issuing a further order, as your assistant Mr. Scott assured me you would, will be sorely embarrassed in their operations on this small amount. Indeed this is bad news to me, Mr. Wilkeson, War Secretary Simon Cameron sympathetically observed, as he stuffed papers from his desk drawer into a large portfolio, scanning them briefly, consigning some to the waste basket. But as you can see, I am leaving office today; I believe Mister Stanton, who repla...

French and Belgian Arms

French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...

Civil War Guns

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