Civil War Guns

Not all the explosive wounds were caused by gunpowder-filled musket shells. Little understood at the time, though recent research has shed some light on the subject, was the existence of a temporary wound cavity of enormous proportions during the passage of the bullet. This temporary cavity was caused by a transfer of energy from the bullet point tangent to the body, to the fluids of the body. Since water is incompressible, the result is to accelerate the water, hence the flesh, rapidly away from the projectile due to the lighter inertia of the body tissue. This energy imparted to the tissue caused development of a cavity which expanded to many times the size of the bullet, flexing several times as the elasticity of the muscle fibers tried to restrict the cavity against the force of the energy-transferred fluids. The effect was to cause a secondary rending and tearing of the flesh. The passing of the bullet excavated, by physically destroying flesh equal to the diameter of the bullet

The use of explosive ball ammunition in rifles has an interesting history. Such projectiles were definitely not anti-personnel missiles. The bullet was hollow, with a cavity filled with a few grains of black powder. Sometimes a conventional percussion nipple was fitted into the nose, recessed below the curve or ogive of the tip. A percussion cap was put on the nipple. Since this cap was below the level of the bullet, the projectile was not set off when it was rammed home. Or, as in the original Jacobs rifle, the ramrod was recessed inside for clearance. British General Jacobs, of the East India Service, is recorded as being a pioneer in the practical application of explosive shell to small arms. While no Jacobs Rifles were obtained for regular issue by either side in the War , a digression on this famous rifle is worthwhile Col. M. B. Walker, U.S., gave order for his brigade to charge after firing volley with bayonets fixed. In distance, Rebel  skirmishers were deployed in the ad

The most common cause of death was tetanus, lockjaw, indirectly, from gunshot wounds. Not all gunshots were immediately fatal. Some were complicated by bacterial contamination, often introduced into the wound later. For example, at First Manassas, where wounded were put into a farm shed or barn lively with the manure of generations of horses, the dread lockjaw was omnipresent. Yet an equally bloody battle, Shiloh or Pittsburgh Landing, had far fewer tetanus casualties; almost none. This was occasioned by the kind of soil they fought over. In the East, fields worked for seasons were dangerous with tetanus. In the West, the virgin land along the Mississippi had its share of dangers, but tetanus was one of the least of them. Gunshot wounds reflected the changing armament of the times. One survey of 4,002 Union cases of gunshot wounds of the scalp broke down as follows: 2,612 were reported at “conoidal musket ball” or high velocity Minie-Burton type; 384 as round musket ball at low velo

But to the large, easily-probed holes gouged out of living flesh by round slow-moving blobs of lead of 3/4-inch diameter, a new dimension had been added— the Minie ball. At nominal ranges, velocities were higher and were better sustained than with the round bullets. Terminal velocity—which is the dispassionate name that the ballistician gives to the “thwack” that to the living is the sound of death—terminal velocities were higher. Methods of preserving cadavers from the battlefield for study did not exist; nor would it have been a socially acceptable practice to explore the bloated mounds of flesh for causes of death. Better to bury them, sometimes without identification in mass graves, and turn your talents toward succoring the living, Doctor.

Accordingly, conferences were set up, through the insistence of the N.R.A. Gun Collector committee and the newly appointed Gun Collector staffman, C. Meade Patterson, to solve some of these perplexities. The result was an amendment to the code which exempted arms “not firing fixed metallic ammunition.” This at one stroke simply and conclusively exempted the whole sweep of collector arms. As Patterson said in an address before the Wisconsin Gun Collectors Association that year, “So now all you collectors don’t have to hide away your shoulder stocked Dragoon Colts.” While Meade charitably made it appear that the members were in possession of vast hordes of stocked Dragoons, I knew positively that the effort of the majesty of Congress in revising that bill had been in favor of perhaps five or ten collectors in the country who owned the surviving few genuine stocked Dragoon Colts, and the slightly larger group which owned the Army 1860 fluted cylinder pistols with stocks. I felt this wa

The evolution of Centennial Arms Corporation to its present position of volume producer of quality hardware was not without its “moments.” The models supplied to Centaure were two: a mint parts-assembled First regular Armys had plain cylinders but engraving was  added copying Colt-type ship scene at about time silver plated  handle “Civilian Model” was added to line late in  1960 . A fluted  cylinder model with attachable shoulder stock was made for  sale after National Rifle Association had laws changed regarding stocked pistols.

During these affairs, I was called in as a consultant to Shore Galleries, an auction firm specializing in firearms sales, and remained with this activity when the auctioneer, Sig Shore, formed a company to deal in surplus military rifles and ammunition, and secondhand guns generally. While the original concept of MARS Equipment Corporation was to engage in buying from primary importers and resell as jobbers and dealers in the United States, the market conditions dictated an expansion of the company funds into other channels. The course of manufacturing presented itself and a series of coincidences launched the now-popular Centennial Arms Corporation line of percussion shooting replica revolvers, pistols, and pistol-carbines. The success of Forgett in Navy Arms, with which Shore had dealt in the auction business, led him to decide to manufacture the Model 1860 or Colt’s New Model Revolving Holster Pistol—the Colt New Model Army .44. My work on this was at first less, ultimately consi

“You can have anything you want made in the gun shops in Brescia,” our friend told us. “What shall we make?” Val asked me. “The Navy Colt can be made for $20 in Germany; maybe it can be made for the same or less here,” I replied. On a handshake a deal was made and Navy Arms Company came into being. I was to supply the model and get the business going, for I had ways of transferring the pistol to Italy quickly and could follow up on the manufacturing details. A full study was prepared by me of manufacturing all parts of the Navy Colt. Since I possess the first prototype and the first production model I flatter myself that their attention to the fitting of the lock work, the “lock timing,” is a consequence of translation and study of my manufacturing prospectus. The document included sketches of possible manufacturing set-ups, photos of engraved guns, and drawings of engraving layouts on the pistols. Meanwhile, we tried to mail a Navy Colt to Brescia. The pistol was borrowed from a co

It is true that this argument applied to currency is the motive behind the suppression of counterfeiting. Issuing additional paper money tends to debase the original issue in value. Whether issuing, say, 6,500 fluted-cylinder Army Colts by copies in this century debases the value of the genuine pistol made in 1860 In Brescian shop of Vittorio Gregorelli fine Italian hands  put together copies of Colt Navy revolvers. Workman standing takes whisker of metal off brass “Reb” backstrap while  man with file shapes curve of  1851  barrel frame.

Lack of  War  surplus shooting  irons, such as Bannerman once sold,  sparked renaissance of percussion  firearms fabrication on mass scale  in Italy and Belgium in late  1950 s.  Arms shown are products from the  firms Navy Arms Co. and Centennial Arms Corp., both productions  being set up abroad by author. Among Civil War arms collectors there is no controversy quite so strong as that of the manufacture of replica Civil War arms. Recognizing, understanding, and sympathizing with collector friends who are opposed to this trade, I have to say that I am not in complete accord with their doctrines. The “advanced collector” argues that he is jealous of the genuine value of his genuine rare guns. He believes that the value of the genuine articles into which he has put money as much for “investment” as for collecting love, is harmed by the production of numerous copies.

The power launch which had brought us across the Hudson from Cornwall, New York, churned nearer to Polopel Island. I could see the square mass of the castellated warehouse looming out of the morning haze. The breakwater was awash with the tide, but we rounded the long southern arm and chugged between the guard turrets, passed a worn sign which proclaimed “Keep Out—Explosives—Armed Guards.” In quiet excitement I waited for the boatman to bring the launch alongside the wharf. I could wait patiently. Along with millions of passengers on the New York Central’s water level route up the Hudson, along with thousands of gun collectors who know the fabulous Bannerman arms business and its incredible catalog (which after 90 years is still a standard reference work for gun students)—I, too, had long wondered “What’s on Bannerman Island?”

Hannibal Hamlin was appointed chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate Sales of Arms, Etc. under a Senate resolution of February 20, 1872 : Resolved, That a select committee of seven be appointed to investigate all sales of Ordnance Stores made by the Government of the United States during the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, AD 1871 , to ascertain the persons to whom such sales were made, the circumstances under which they were made, the sums respectively paid by said purchasers to the United States, and the disposition made of the proceeds of such sales; and that said committee also enquire and report whether any member of the Senate, or any other American citizen, is or has been in communication or collusion with the government or authorities of any foreign power, or with any agent or officer thereof, in reference to the said matter; and, also, whether breech-loading muskets, or other muskets capable of being transformed into breech-loaders, have not been sold by the W

But in between this brisk business someone stepped in and put a halt to the fun: Ordnance Office, War Department Washington, January 23, 1871 Major S. Crispin, Corner Houston and Greene Streets, New York The President directs that sales of ordnance and ordnance stores be discontinued. Acknowledge receipt. A. B. Dyer, Chief of Ordnance The same day Dyer sent a follow-up clarifying telegram, saying that Crispin could deliver all stores sold previous to his receipt of the Presidential stop-sale telegram. This led to some loop-hole searching. Smith, Crosby & Company had put up margin for Parrott rifled field batteries, which purchase they had transferred to C. K. Garrison. Crispin sought to deliver to Garrison a suitable quantity of ammunition. To his and Dyer’s surprise, J. Schuyler Crosby declined to receive the ammunition, saying he did not want it. In another instance, Alfred Steinberger had put up margin and been awarded 6,300 Enfield rifles in October, 1870 , but

Undaunted by the possibility of disapproval of his Remington purchase, Poultney kept at the Ordnance Department, seeking more arms. He was a heavy purchaser of all types of surplus equipment, and some not so surplus. He preferred National Armory products, new make or rebuilt. Learning that the Armory had been conducting experiments in rebuilding Spencer carbines into rifles, fitted with Springfield “Eagle-V-P” barrels and new forestocks, he tried to buy them. His expectations were not unfounded. Silas Crispin, now a brevet colonel, was on duty as usual in New York, office at Houston and Greene streets. To General Dyer, Chief of Ordnance, on January 6, 1871 , he telegraphed: “Benton has 500, more or less, Spencer rifles on hand. Please authorize sale at 30 dollars.” Replied Dyer, “Sell Spencers at 30 dollars each.” The demand continued, and Crispin wired Washington again, the afternoon of the 7th, seeking to learn if the Navy had any Spencers. Dyer fired back at once: “Commander Navy

The Navy Department had ordered 10,000 rifles to be built at Springfield Armory on the Remington Rolling Block breech-loading system, .50 caliber. These arms were finished with casehardened frames, and blued 32%-inch round barrels, of Springfield Model 1868 type, rifled with three broad grooves, and fitted under the muzzle with a stud for attaching the fishscale brass hilted sword bayonet. The fore stock is held by two spring-bands. As first issued, this rifle had the rear sight mounted quite close to the receiver, over the chamber. The Secretary of the Navy condemned these rifles and Thomas Poultney made an offer to buy them from Springfield Armory, paying the Navy a sum equal to the fabrication cost of 12,000 more rifles with the rear sights properly located.

Invitations for proposals to bid on Ordnance supplies were sent out October 12 by General A. B. Dyer, Chief of Ordnance, to A. B. Steinberger, John Absterdam, and Remington & Sons, as follows: Sealed proposals, to be opened at the Ordnance Office at 12 m. tomorrow, October 13, are hereby invited for the purchase of Two hundred thousand Springfield muskets, new; 110,000 Springfield muskets, serviceable and in good order, .58 caliber, muzzle-loaders, with 150 rounds of ammunition for each gun; 40,000 Enfield muskets, new more or less; 40,000 Enfield muskets, cleaned and repaired; 30,000 Enfield muskets, unserviceable. Bids will be entertained for any one of the above lots of arms, with ammunition for the same, and the privilege is reserved of rejecting any bid that may not be deemed sufficient. A margin of 20 per cent must be paid at the time of the award by any and all bids, and the residue upon the delivery of the stores.

The realities of the case are interesting, by contrast with the later events in disposing of the Civil War surplus. The cabinet’s decision to stop shipping arms to France was at the insistence of the State Department, which felt that the fact the United States was known to be supplying guns on an “official” basis to one of the belligerents would endanger our relations with the other power, Germany. At that time a weak imperialistic nation emerging from a heterogeneous confederation of princely states, the Germany of Kaiser Bill might have been postponed a generation by a more active aid of the United States to our sister republic France. If France, with publicly avowed assist- ance of Uncle Sam, had been able to throw back the German invasion of 1870 , a defeated Germany would not have been in such a strong position in 1914 . The Great War would have, instead, been of the minor magnitude of the Franco-Prussian War , and the global devastation of World War II might have been confin

It is the habit of the Ordnance Department to automatically classify any goods as “unserviceable” after some specified period of time, providing that the goods may be inspected and reclassified “serviceable” if found to be so in fact. But the act of inspecting is needed to reclassify ordnance stores to “serviceable” grade. Post World War II sales of surplus small arms has often involved delivery to the purchaser of brand new guns, never removed from the factory boxes, which were classified as “unserviceable” simply because they had been in storage, not inspected, for more than a decade. Boker’s purchase of “unserviceable” saddles was probably in this category, though he paid only $2.50 each for the saddles and a half buck each for 1,000 halters.

Behind scenes of surplus buying was Marcellus Hartley,  whose military goods firm emerged from  Civil  War  as one of  the largest businesses in nation, controlling cartridge factory  at Bridgeport and ultimately Remington Arms Co. itself. Headed “Off to France,” was a notice in the New York Herald in 1870 . The steamer Ontario, of Boston, cleared from the Custom House yesterday for Cowes and a market, with a full cargo of arms and munitions of War , as follows: 73,620 muskets 20,950 carbines 500 rifles 500 army revolvers 17,785,352 cartridges 1 case moulds 55 pieces artillery The total value of the warlike material, $1,853,497, threefourths of which is shipped by one house . . . There were no passengers reported at the Custom House, but it would be singular if there were not a few enthusiasts accompanying such an important addition to the resources of France. The Ontario cleared for “Cowes and a market” which means that she will stop there to get a convoy of French men-of- Wa

By 1869 , Christopher Spencer’s company folded, and the manufacture of the lever-action repeating rifles ceased. Commercially, it was too bad, for the company assets were taken over by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company of New Haven, while the remaining stock of arms was merchandised through Hartley, Schuyler & Graham. If Spencer had survived for one more year (he did go back into business making shotguns in Brooklyn), it might have been his firm that took over Winchester, instead of vice versa. For with the start of the Franco-Prussian War , Spencer guns received as much use as ever they saw in the Cumberland Valley or the farmlands of eastern Pennsylvania.

Converting the Sharps’ guns was done by altering the hammer to flat face and fitting a new breechblock, carrying a center-fire or rimfire pin. The barrel was sometimes re-lined and the gun chambered for the rimmed metal shell. An extractor was also fitted, working on the same pin as the block lever hinge. Colts could be converted by the gunsmith, in Great Western’s own shops, or by the Colt company. Usually the job involved fitting a cylinder which had had the nipple bolsters turned off and the space taken up in the frame by a thick plate or ring, which was permanently attached, and carried a spring-flip loading gate. On the barrel was fitted a side rod ejector. Patents of William Mason, a former Remington and Winchester employee, and C. B. Richards, later professor of mechanical engineering in Yale, figure in this conversion era 1868- 73.

Some of the guns remained in storage until long after they had been obsoleted by superior designs. Then many were sold at auction, while others, battlefield relics, or remnants of post- War selling through Montgomery Ward & Company and other large firms, filtered out through the normal trade channels. Often some old Civil War musket remained in attic or bam until the rise of the little old lady antique dealer. The gun collector is often offered muskets “carried by my grandfather at Bunker Hill” which bear the dates of Civil War manufacture conspicuously stamped on lock, on barrel, on bayonet, or saber blade. The collector will scoff at these dealers who cannot even tell when the gun was made, though the date is marked on it. They should not scoff—the failing was not uncommon in Civil War Times. Consider the position of General Butler, after he had occupied New Orleans and decreed amnesty for all holders of deadly weapons, if they would turn them in to the provost marshal. One

In the wake of the terrible conflict lay broken lives, piles of dead men “groaning for burial,” and the smoldering bricks and gaunt, solitary chimneys of a Southland laid waste. In its wake lay, too, stacked in piles like cordwood, or in armory chests of twenty muskets, twenty bayonets, with appendages, the most fantastic conglomeration of assorted small arms ever to be collected together on the face of the earth. Half these were Union arms; but the immense Confederate ordnance establishment fell almost entirely into the hands of the Federal Army in 1865 . The polyglot minions of Peter the Hermit, slashing through the ranks of Saracens to protect the Holy Sepulchre from infidel defilement, never carried a more varied lot of arms and weapons.

Over the South, derringer suppliers had a brisk sales day. From Houston, Texas, came specimens of the pocket blasters having at least two features which many collectors consider “characteristic.” First, is the presence of a rather rounded and pronounced schnabel fore-end tip, more rounded than that of true derringers, yet definitely present, unlike the Bitterlich type which seem to have little or none. Less definitely characteristic is the barrel wedge escutcheon of nickel silver, fastened by two side screws finished flush with the plate and stock. Pineapple finials are rare on these, which are more commonly ovaled. Genuine derringer escutcheons of course are often pineapple-shaped in their ends, and usually set in with wire brads soldered to the backs, instead of a visible screw or pin. A handsome pair of G. Erichson, Houston, derringers in the Pugsley collection show the “Houston schnabel” as well as screw-fastened escutcheons. The shape of the escutcheon is more curved around the

Though Bitterlich is little known today, two of his customers became famous when they combined to supply revolvers for the Confederacy. These were William S. Schneider of Memphis, and Frederick G. Glassick of the same city. Derringer-type pistols having the Bitterlich characteristics are known with the trade names of both Glassick and Schneider applied, indicating they were separate and competitive merchants, in the ante bellum days of this gambler haunted Mississippi River port. Schneider pistols may have wedge-fastened barrels, with oval silver stock escutcheons; the Bitterlich derringers for Glassick have a 4leaf escutcheon on the bottom of the stock, and the barrel is held by a screw from the bottom. After War began, Schneider and Glassick merged into a new firm, advertised for all persons who had left guns for repair longer than 3 months, to get them, for they would turn the remainder over to the Confederate Government as of March 15, 1862 . The two had embarked upon the manufa

Details found on unmarked derringers, or pistols bearing a name which is plainly that of a sales agent or owner, may help tie down a Southern origin for the gun. A nut instead of a hammer cap screw is one characteristic of pistols made by Frank J. Bitterlich, 16 Deaderich Street, Nashville, Tennessee. Bitterlich pistols are characteristic in having octagonal barrels, though there are of course exceptions. Southern-made pistols seem to have the cheaper, easily taken down detail, which Deringer himself used sparingly, of fastening the rear of the lockplate by the edge or flange of the wood screw which merely holds a notched end of the plate. Many true derringer pistols, especially the better quality ones, have the lockplate rear tip drilled cleanly through for a screw that more solidly holds the plate, but also must be removed completely to disassemble. Bitterlich pistols have one clue which, marked or unmarked, would seem to correctly identify an arm as being made by this celebrated p

When the Deringer moved south and west, an even wider latitude of minor style points appeared which tend to localize the maker or area of manufacture of some of these important little pistols. Alabama collector Jay P. Altmayer, who manages to sandwich an amazing amount of scholarship into an active life not connected with the gun field, other than as a hobby, has noticed enough differences in Southern derringers to comment on this. “Although more derringers were sold in the Far West, than there were sold along the Mississippi,” Altmayer notes, “out of the Mississippi gun trade grew a chain of rare makers. The collector will emphasize the minor variations of stock shape and lock shape that developed from St. Louis all the way to Houston. “There are Houston derringers, one known by Mendenhall of North Carolina, and a rare pair of Louisiana derringers. Bitterlich of Nashville contributed to this Southern derringer evolution. Such arms have different decoration and design than the Phila