Sales of War Surplus

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.

The arms sales were widely advertised, and held at posts located in various parts of the country. Though not listed in the 1870’s, a somewhat later purchaser of considerable quantities of surplus was Colonel W. Stokes Kirk of Philadelphia. He used to make his bids and when successful, at once rent a large, temporary emporium in the city where the sale was held. Striking off large hand bills, he paid boys a few pennies to plaster the town with them. These bills tabulated everything he had bought, and gave low prices, for cash. After a few weeks of this he would close down the store, having liquidated a good deal of the more salable parts of the lot, and would then ship the remainder back to his depot for sale over a longer period of time. Colonel Kirk’s warehouses in Philadelphia up until the decade after World War II used to be a “gold mine” for enterprising merchants and gun fans who could get into the “back room.”
Another firm which grew to prominence in later years before the turn of the century was that of the White Brothers, at 3 South Water Street, New York. Until 1950 it was possible to assemble a new Remington .44 revolver from parts found there. The West Point Museum about 1956 made a very large purchase at very moderate prices of a great variety of Civil War uniform trappings, epaulettes, chevrons, belts, and other gear which the White’s had preserved for a century in a like-new condition.
Even at this present time it is possible to obtain new components for the favorite arms of the War, Springfield Rifles of every model, Sharps and Spencer carbines and rifles, new Hall carbine stocks and new Starr revolver parts. Firms specializing in these components are just now breaking into the reservoir of parts which accompanied ever large contract. The tabulated cases of muskets, for example, which were in the sale list, had long since been sold off; now the “gravy” of the

Hartley & Graham salesman William Reynolds was bag-man for arms selling syndicate which negotiated purchases for France after Remington was forbidden to buy at U.S. sales. Reynolds was in Paris to pick up the cash, and escaped in a balloon. Exploit of Oct. 7, 1870, coincided with War Minister Gambetta’s flight from capital; was commemorated on pistol Reynolds received at testimonial dinner on his triumphant return to New York. Odd Smith & Wesson shown is unusual transition model having barrel and cylinder of late Civil War pocket .32 model but round butt of post-War type.

purchase, the spare parts chests, were being looked into. This writer in 1961 purchased from several sources enough parts, new, for the Sharps New Model 1863 Rifle, to complete a used receiver with barrel attached

that he bought from yet another merchant. He selected the Sharps parts from two competitive lists, taking a buttstock from one and a forestock from another, because the parts were lowest, though each vendor offered practically identical lists of parts. That competition should exist 100 years after the contracts, in the sale of parts of Civil War arms, is a remarkable commentary upon the tremendous quantities of materiel actually produced for that conflict.
The sale lists of 1870 would send a modem collector into a frenzy of buying. On November 25, 1867, at Leavenworth Arsenal, Kansas, condemned ordnance stores including 19,551 small arms were sold. Listed were Colt’s revolving rifles, “United States Rifles Model 1840” (sic), Enfield and Belgian rifle-muskets, Enfield rifles, Sapper’s rifles, U.S. rifle muskets, Austrian and Belgian rifle muskets, U.S. smooth bore muskets, Austrian rifles, Adams, Lefaucheaux, Savage, Starr, and Whitney pistols, Prussian rifle-muskets, carbines by Burnside, Cosmopolitan, Gallagher, Green, Hall, Joslyn, Maynard, Merrill, Smith, Starr and Wesson, and Austrian carbines. On May 26, 1868, another sale of artillery materiel took place at Watervleit Arsenal, “West Troy,” New York. On August 26, 1868, Springfield Armory advertised their September 29 sale of such oddments as “lot of window-frames, lot of window shutters and blinds,” but such less well tabulated and enigmatically listed items as “small arms, various models;” and “parts of arms, various models.” Catalogs of these sales were available on application.
Four days before the sale, the Government suspended the sales at Springfield and another at St. Louis of “carbines, muskets, rifles, pistols, shot-guns, swords and sabers” among other equipments, scheduled for October 5. The Congress was taking a long look at the method of selling surplus.
They reappraised the conditions of such sales, and a tender put out at the time lists a number of businesslike terms the purchasers had to comply with. Then the Springfield sale was resumed “by order of the President,” set for 10 a.m. December 14, 1868. Other sales were scheduled for December 17 at Watertown Arsenal near Boston, and December 21 at Frankford near Philadelphia. A week later, doubtless following the wishes of the regular sales attenders who preferred to go south for the winter, Fort Monroe Arsenal at Old Point Comfort was the site, December 28, of the sale of 217 cast-iron guns of various descriptions and two bronze guns. Interesting to contemplate and wonder about, were “36 foreign model arms of various calibers,” evidently purchased by Major Mordecai or other European travellers over the years for the benefit of our Ordnance Department’s engineers to study, and then relegated to Fort Monroe when their period of usefulness had passed.
Three offerings were sufficiently varied to be of importance in their own time, and to have some points of interest for the modern student. Chronologically, the first and most important sale was a proposal issued by Colonel Crispin, from his office of the Ordnance Agency
at Houston & Greene streets (PO Box 1811) in New York, on July 3, 1869. He declared that up till August 4, offers would be received for:
100.000    Springfield rifled muskets, caliber .58,
new
100.000    Springfield rifled muskets, caliber .58,
cleaned and repaired
5.000    Spencer carbines, new model, caliber .50,
new
5.000    Spencer carbines, old model, caliber .52,
new
5.000    Spencer carbines, accouterments,
“Blakesley’s,” new
5.000    Spencer carbines, accouterments “other
models,” new
The second offering by Colonel Crispin on November 22, 1869, was to be opened as to bids on December 22, 1869. It included:
40.000    Enfield rifle muskets, cal. .577, new
3.000    United States flintlock muskets, cal. .69,
serviceable
5.000 Remington carbines, cal. .44, new
15.000 Starr’s army pistols, cal. .44, new
There were also sabers and many thousands of pounds of small arms and cannon powder in this lot.
On October 17, 1870, a further offer was made public, bids to close October 29. This offer was made by General Dyer, Chief of Ordnance, directly and not through Colonel Crispin. The Government proposed to sell:
2.500    breech-loading muskets, caliber .58, with
cartridges for same.
1.000    Ball’s repeating carbines, cal. .50, with
ammunition.
2.500    Gallagher’s carbines, adapted for Spencer
ammunition.
4.000    Maynard’s carbines, with 400 rounds of
ammunition per gun.
1.000    Palmer’s carbines, caliber .44, with
ammunition.
3,600 Remington carbines, caliber .44, with ammunition.
2.500    Warner’s carbines and ammunition.
2,700 Joslyn’s carbines & ammunition, caliber .52.
40.000    sets carbines accouterments, serviceable,
Blakesley’s and other patterns.
70.000    sets infantry accouterments.
20.000    Starr’s revolvers, caliber .44, with
ammunition.
5.000    Rogers & Spencer’s revolvers, with
ammunition, caliber .44.
10.000    Remington Army revolvers, caliber .44,
with ammunition.
35.000    pistol holsters.
40.000    cavalry sabers.
1.000    Spencer rifles.
20.000    sets horse equipments.
Remington was a heavy buyer in October, 1870, purchasing 50,000 Springfield rifled muskets, cleaned and repaired and fully serviceable, at $5 each. Then on November 30, the Ilion Company bought back from the Government nearly the entire complement of splitbreech carbines supplied on their contracts of September 30, 1865, and May 24, 1866. Contract price on the carbines, caliber .56-.50 Spencer chambering, was $23 each, and 14,999 were delivered. The November, 1870, repurchase at $15 each, together with 19,434 Spencer carbines of similar caliber, and 17,517,822 Spencer cartridges, gave the company a handsome profit on their transactions.
Spencer carbines were a heavy favorite among the export Franco-Prussian War buyers. A total of 94,196 Spencer carbines was delivered to the War Department between January 1, 1861, and June 30, 1866. Of these, 35,028 were disposed of in the 1870-72 sales, most of them destined for Paris through Remington or Hartley; 31,269,746 Spencer shells also were sold, about two-thirds of the total number of 58,238,924 Spencer cartridges procured from ’61 to ’65.
In selling surplus, the custom of the Government officers was to call for bids for small lots of arms at a price. Then, if the buyer desired, the bid could apply to a much larger lot, sometimes as many as 250,000 Springfield muzzle-loaders at a crack. Because of the huge quantities of this War materiel being put into the market by Uncle Sam in 1870, the newspapers leaped on the sales as food for sensational articles. Boosting the circulation of their sheets also depressed the circulation of the Remington brothers, who would have been much happier if this business had not reached the light of public notice.
Unable to control the newspapers, the Remingtons were suddenly spotlighted with articles which were deliberate editorializations against their business. Inevitably, a Congressional committee was called to inquire into the arms business and sales by the Ordnance Department. Remington, among all the other large buyers and sellers to the Government, was outlawed. By order of Secretary of War W. W. Belknap, late in 1870, no more arms were sold to Remington, since it was known that Remington was shipping rifles to France.