The Richmond Rifle Musket

The basic rifle musket was the major production in Virginia. With flat iron bands and the regular 1855

cone seat, it resembles at a short distance the standard U. S. service arm. The absence of Maynard primer is noticeable because the plate is solid in this area. There are actually the production of three factories concerned in this picture. First, there are the Ml855 Rifle Muskets fabricated under Virginia supervision (Colonel Jackson) at Harpers Ferry during the two months after its capture. At least 1,500 arms may be considered to have been made there; possibly more. They are assumed to be standard Ml855 guns, type of 1859 with patchbox. As noted, Pollard records 5,-
000 guns being seized which were “unproved.” Possibly these bear the usual Harpers Ferry marks but lack the VP-eagle barrel stamps.
The second “transition” Confederate Richmond Rifle is that made prior to August 23, 1861, in a temporary set-up by Burton in a tobacco warehouse. The Harpers Ferry equipment could not be moved into the Richmond Armory because Tredegar’s contract had called for a complete suite of machinery, and all the space had been appropriated. Burton built muskets mostly from captured parts, waiting the beginning of work at the Armory proper. As General Gorgas notes, the Armory began turning out arms by September, 1861.
In the interim, the Burton-Virginia State guns bore only the mark Richmond va. 1861 on the lockplate, and sometimes visible the stamp of Burton, jb on the stock behind the trigger guard tang as on Enfields. In the fall, the C.S. authorities, particularly Gorgas, wanted to shift the Harpers Ferry equipment deeper into the South; the state refused. Their gift was to be used by the Confederacy in the Richmond works, or not at all. Gorgas acquiesced and phased in the Harpers Ferry equipment and placed Burton in charge. William Albaugh III, leading authority on Confederate arms, expresses the opinion (Confederate Arms, Albaugh & Simmons) that the Tredegar machinery is Both D. C. Hodkins and J. P. Murray copied the U.S. M1855 Carbine. Gun shown is not marked and ramrod swivel formerly mounted below muzzle is gone. Second is Richmond Sharps carbine, No. 8729, with no trace of Robinson’s mark usually found on lockplate. Well machined, the buttstock may be a replacement. Hinged-leaf rear sight. Third is Richmond Armory carbine or musketoon dated 1863 with extra sling swivel in belly of stock. At bottom is Virginia Manufactory rifle made 1815 as a long “Kentucky” and then cut short in 1861 by James Walsh for cavalry issue. Val Forgett collection.
thought to have been for the fabrication of the Model 1842 muskets.
This seems hardly likely, in view of Solomon Adams’ trip to Springfield to make a pattern arm and the employment of Burton to supervise the Tredegar machine contract. All the emphasis was on the best arm, not the abandoned and discarded gun. The state did purchase 5,000 altered percussion muskets from the United States for $2.50; these were roughly equivalent to the Ml842 percussion guns when properly altered, and it seems most unlikely that Virginia, after dickering with Colt and trading around for the “best repeaters” of the time would contract with Anderson for machinery to make a musket model a generation old.
Except for the addition of the mark CS above the name, signifying the rifle musket was made for the Confederacy at Richmond, the guns continued to be the same. When it became necessary to fabricate some parts completely, the Harpers Ferry captured stores having been exhausted, brass was substituted for cast iron. Richmond rifle muskets are found with brass nose caps and butt plates. Issues throughout the War included captured gun parts, accounting for mixed models, such as one example pictured with the U. S. pattern of 1863 hammer and barrel fitted to a Richmond lock and stock group.