Schneider & Glassick

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 manufacture of revolvers, and proposed to furnish the Confederacy with Colt-type revolvers of local manufacture. Schneider & Glassick revolvers are exceedingly rare, 14 having been made, and of three surviving specimens, two are iron-framed while one is brass framed. Barrels are Colt-type octagon. It is thought that these revolvers may actually have been made by Bitterlich for his erstwhile derringer distributors. A Bitterlich-type derringer, hammer fastened by a narrow nut instead of cap screw, and barrel held by the Glassick-type stock screw, is known marked “J. Hausmann.” His address is unknown, other than that the pistol has a Southern origin.

Comments

The Gatling Gun

Ager, Williams, Vandenberg, these have faded into history. The repeating gun most remembered from the war, and yet one which had a very confusing record of use therein, is that of Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling. I had the pleasure of witnessing how effectively Dr. Gatling had builded when I attended a meeting of the American Ordnance Association at Aberdeen the fall of 1957 . Mounted on a testing stand was a small bundle of barrels, dwarfed in seeming firepower by the huge cannon flanking it. But when the gunner pushed the button and that mighty mite whirred into action with a high-pitched snarling roar so rapidly that no individual explosions could even be sensed, I knew I had witnessed not only the world’s fastest-firing machine gun, and the world’s heaviest gun in weight of metal fired (a ton and a half in one minute), but a gun that was directly inspired by the Civil War special artillery General Butler bought from Dr. Gatling. First of Gatling’s guns was bulky wheeled carriage “c...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

You place me in a most embarrassing position, Mr. Secretary. How is that, Mr. Wilkeson? the gaunt-faced Penn sylvanian queried, the lines of his expression amplified by the fatigue and, somewhat, disappointment with which he laid down his role as Secretary of War for Mr. Lincoln. Because, Mr. Cameron, the newspaperman re sponded, your contract for rifle muskets with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, Connecticut is for only 25,000 arms, and my friends there, whom I induced to engage in this business in expectation of your issuing a further order, as your assistant Mr. Scott assured me you would, will be sorely embarrassed in their operations on this small amount. Indeed this is bad news to me, Mr. Wilkeson, War Secretary Simon Cameron sympathetically observed, as he stuffed papers from his desk drawer into a large portfolio, scanning them briefly, consigning some to the waste basket. But as you can see, I am leaving office today; I believe Mister Stanton, who repla...

French and Belgian Arms

French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...

Civil War Guns

Search This Blog