The Richmond and the Fayetteville Rifle Muskets

Under direction of Burkhart, Harpers Ferry continued to make rifle muskets for a period of two months; by June 18 all the former United States Arsenal materiel had been removed to Richmond and Fayetteville. Splitting the machinery between two factories gave rise to what are essentially two different series of arms: the Richmond Rifle Musket and Carbines, which are cut-down variations, and the Fayetteville Rifle. The major difference, generally, is in the lockplate form. That of the Richmond guns is a forging shaped to take the recess for Maynard tape primer, a “humpbacked” lockplate. The Fayetteville is the basic U. S. 1861 shape of plate; the stocks for both types conform to the respective patterns in their inletting.

The Richmond lockplate is an obvious attempt to employ forgings and forging dies which stamped out the Maynard type of lockplate. Richmond locks are known dated for 1861, ’62, ’63, ’64, and ’65; toward the last, skimping on the metal which does not fill the die completely can be observed; the humpback shape is not so full or complete as in the early locks. A few of the “humpback” lockplates are seen on Fayetteville rifles; these were selected from Richmond-destined spare parts, to fit up into the 17,000 gun stocks taken by the Maryland troops and sent to North Carolina. Or it is possible that the former Master Armorer of Harpers Ferry, Ball, had not sorted out the tools until late in 1861 to begin work on the regular Fayetteville rifles? While the lockplate tools could have been made in Fayetteville by Ball or someone else skilled in toolmaking, there is a hint in coincidence of some dates that the fixtures for making the new U. S. lockplate, without Maynard primer, may have existed in the Harpers Ferry shops at the time of capture.
In fiscal year ending June 30, 1860, Superintendent Alfred M. Barbour, a strong secession man, reported on the fabrication at Harpers Ferry of “one set patchbox gauges for the rifle musket.” To be included in this report, the gauges must have been made subsequent to June 30, which is logical as the patchbox is recorded in the Ordnance Manual for 1861 as having been added to the Rifle Musket July 9, 1859. But a new and cheaper patchbox was designed, and the model from Springfield Armory is marked A—117/60 (now in Fuller collection). If this mark means “Allin, January 17, 1860,” a possible translation, it conforms to the report and recommendations of the Springfield Armory board of officers which on May 18, 1860 recommended changes in the Rifle and Rifle Musket pattern, but okayed preserving the patchbox, suggesting adoption of an improved round form. The same board also recommended abandoning the Maynard primer. While Springfield and existing Harpers Ferry records have not been examined for this moot point, it seems Springfield was given the task of making up the patchbox, and Harpers Ferry, innovator of the Maynard primed Ml855 pattern in the first place, the job of modifying the lock.
Capture of the provisional tooling for a modified plain lock by Jackson’s force in April of 1861 would account for the delay in Springfield Armory finally abandoning the Maynard primer, George Dwight not initiating that change at Springfield until April 30.
The idea that Harpers Ferry had been supposed to redesign the lock gives some reasonableness to the idea which then arose, after the capture of Harpers Ferry, of completely redesigning the Springfield pattern to the 1861 Special Model; the rise of the South’s military power rapidly revised the Federal notions, and Harpers Ferry settled, as did Fayetteville arsenal, for chopping off the top of a plain lock for the new pattern. But Fayetteville, we think, had the tools from Harpers Ferry for the new lockplate; Richmond kept the tools for the old.