The Virginia State Armory

The Virginia State Armory at the south end of Fifth Street, bordered by the James River and fronting on the Kanawha Canal, had an ancient and honorable history. As the Virginia Manufactory it had fabricated flintlock muskets and rifles, and some pistols, for the forces of the commonwealth. Authorized to be erected by act of the legislature in 1797, the armory was in production by 1802, turning out 2,151 muskets by October 13, 1803, of the Charleville-Springfield modified pattern. Flintlock rifles, full-stocked with brass patchboxes, of military Kentucky form, were also made, and two types of pistols, the latest type resembling the U. S. Harpers Ferry 1806 model, but with a swivel ramrod. Thousands of these arms were on hand to be transformed to percussion; many being cut down for cavalry issue, in 1861. With the increase in production and distribution of Government armory guns, and the decrease in Indian Warfare within the commonwealth, the demands on the Richmond factory diminished. In 1820 it was shut down, and the buildings converted to the use of a school. In 1860 the buildings, which from their appearance in old prints reflected the institutional architecture of 1840-50, reverted to state uses and a company of militia cadets was billeted there.
The move to refit the establishment as a manufacturing armory began stirring in February of 1859. On the 18th, Adjutant General William H. Richardson received a circular from Colt informing him of the values of Colt’s percussion arms in terms of U. S. muskets. The purpose of the circular was to enable the state official to calculate how many Colt arms he could get instead of the state’s annual quota of U. S. muskets under the Militia Act of 1808. To Richardson, this seemed like a godsend and he asked Colt if the colonel would take “a large number of the old flintlock muskets, pistols, rifles” in a depot at Richmond in exchange for original percussion arms, at the rate indicated in the circular.
Colt did not reply directly, at least he did not accept the proposition. But he did, during the year, consider other possibilities and had the Colt company secretary, Major William M. B. Hartley, on duty in Washington, check into the Richmond situation.

Hartley was authorized to present a proposal of four points to Governor Wise of Virginia concerning rearming the state troops. First, Colt would agree to exchange the old arms for new Colt’s Patent guns, but not at the circular equivalent, only at a fair value, and he would deliver the Colts only “as fast as I can make sale of the old arms.” He considered this point “decidedly preferable for all parties and especially so for a few years until some of the other propositions can be carried out.” These are the words of a man who neither expects nor wants War!
Second, Colt would contract exclusively with Virginia for a fixed length of time to make any of his arms at the U. S. prices. Third, was one of the most interesting: he proposed to supply “machinery and tools,” the complete plant, for making annually 10,000 rifled muskets “of the United States pattern,” for $250,000. The fourth proposal was to supply-machinery to rifle and sight, and alter to percussion, the old Virginia Manufactory arms, for $50,000; the plant to have a capacity of 10,000 arms per year.
Hartley at once went to Richmond, and made a critical examination of the premises. Virginia, resisting the idea of putting out money, had countered with an offer that Hartley was in favor of: a stock company should be formed, Colt to take 9/16, putting up machinery to pay for his share and control. A new arsenal of granite should be built, using 200 laborers from the penitentiary, to be in a more defensible position. The waterpower of the Kanawha Canal impressed

Short rifle and rifle musket of Ml855 type but minus Maynard primer were made at Richmond Armory. Guns shown are stamped CS, were produced for Confederacy after South’s armory system was placed under Col. Burton’s supervision. Bottom is smoothbore, flintlock, 1808 pattern musket made at Virginia Manufactory in Richmond, 1813. There were 50,000 of these issued by Virginia State Ordnance Chief, Dimmock, in first days of War. From Jac Weller collection.

Richmond also assembled guns using captured and salvaged U.S. barrel (flat cone seat bolster) mounted to 1855-type stock, edged hammer.

Hartley; the water “can be used three times,” i.e., drive three separate sets of power wheels, and “it would almost drive the works of Lowell,” referring to the enormous consumption of power in the textile industries of Lowell, Massachusetts.
After January 1, 1860, Colt continued to be sanguine that some arrangement could be made with the state. After the alarm of John Brown’s raid, which had alerted not only the state but the whole South to the prospect of similar madcap uprisings, legislatures everywhere appropriated surplus money for arms. Virginia appropriated an additional $150,000 for the purchase of arms, and more for putting the armory into operation. Hartley would not give up the notion of making Colt’s arms of some description in Richmond. He suggested leasing the old armory; it is in his letter to Colt of February 7, 1860, that Hartley states: “A cheap rifle should be made for the militia at from $10 to $15 each, say .52 or .50 caliber and I believe many thousands would be ordered.”
While Colt had adherents in the Capitol, and master gunmaker Samuel Sutherland was a sales agent for his new guns, plans for the Northern arms maker to revitalize the Southern factory fell through. Instead, the state’s newly appointed Master Armorer Solomon Adams was sent back to Springfield Armory, where he had labored for the United States for the preceding 15 years, to make copies of drawings and to prepare a model arm as a pattern for Virginia.
Adams and his assistants were engaged in this work in November, 1860, but required a little greater liberty than the work of making the model musket allowed, and found Colonel Craig dead set against assisting Virginia. On petitioning Secretary of War John B. Floyd, a staunch Virginian, for permission to “use some of the armory patterns for the Richmond machinery, and the privilege of taking drawings of fixtures, tools and etc.,” Adam’s desire was granted.