Civil War Guns

It is odd that “the man who invented the revolver” kept his factory going by making single shot muskets. But deliveries from the Hartford works reveal a cessation of revolver production for the Government with a last delivery of 955 Colt’s holster pistols, new model, at $14; 155 of them being without bullet moulds at only $13.73. These arms were received November 10, 1863 ; no more are shown as bought by the North from Military Navy Colt is US stamped on frame and bears inspection seal on grips. Backstrap of this pistol now owned  by Tom Parvin of Illinois is inscribed to Col. Pleasants who  was supervisor of the Crater mining in Union siege of Petersburg, Va. Pistol is said to have been presented to Pleasants  while he was Provost Marshal of Lexington, Ky., by the  “citizens.”

The 1860 Army was but one of a series of handguns in all calibers, characterized by the creeping lever and usually by a round “streamlined” barrel. The creeping lever was designed by Elisha Root in 1849 , and he applied for a patent on December 3. The patent was withdrawn and Colt for some years after that dallied with inadvertent slips of publicizing the design of his employee, Root, by picturing or suggesting it in patents but never quite saying it. At last in 1855 he allowed Root to take out a patent on a solid frame spur trigger revolver which embodied as its patentable features a system of rotating the cylinder that was not very practical, and on reissue, the creeping loading lever. The lever as fitted to the Army had six studs which bore in sequence in cavities drilled along the underside of the barrel, a rack and pinion device. At any given moment in the working of the lever maximum thrust was concentrated on one stud. Hardened, these studs Some Colt’s stayed South. This ...

Colt’s greatest contribution to the Union was the production of the New Model Army 1860 revolver, .44 caliber. This big-handled 8-inch round barrel six-pistol was carried in the fight at Brandy Station, saw service in the hands of Major General Custer; was a gift of supreme elegance to General Andrew Porter, General McClellan, and others “from the Inventor,” and has been a favorite of cap-and-ball shooters in this century, as it was a weapon of necessity in the last. Early in September, 1861 General Ripley realized there was going to be one hell of a scrap to “save the Union.” He began issuing purchase orders and telegrams which had the force of contracts. Ordnance Office, Washington, September 17, 1861 Samuel Colt, Hartford, Connecticut: Deliver weekly, until further orders, as many of your pistols, holsters, new pattern, as you can make. James W. Ripley

Of Special Models, Colt’s fabricated 75,000 which they delivered under their own contracts: 5 July, 1861    25,000 contracted    25,000 delivered 5 June, 1863    50,000 contracted    12,500 delivered 19 March, 1864    37,500 contracted    37,500 delivered In Haven & Belden’s A History of    the Colt Revolver it is stated that they delivered 75,000 on contract, and “nearly forty thousand more on sub-contracts for others who could not fill their orders.”

The demand for arms was great that spring of ’61, and Colt obtained a sample “old Harpers Ferry rifle” as he wired Ripley on June 22, “and on hasty examination believe they can be bored up with sword bayonets so as to be useful to Mi(li)tia.” Asking the price, he was told by Ripley he could have those on hand in the various arsenals at $10 each. Colt’s letter of the next day, June 23, asked for a box of rifles to be sent from each place where stored. Coloney Ripley so ordered, telling Colonel Colt there were 11,500 of the rifles on hand at Watertown, Watervleit, Governors Island, and Washington arsenals.

Why Colt had so much trouble in turning in the first muskets cannot now be surmised. In the development stages, everything went smoothly. On April 19, the day after Fort Sumter was bombarded, Colt took the cars to Washington, but was stopped in New York by a flare-up of his sickness. He wrote to his friend Gideon Welles, offering the services of his factory, saying he would send Root to see him, and “shall suspend individual orders for military arms.” The mails were interrupted but Welles queried his peer, Cameron, on the matter and Cameron responded that he could not say until he knew what kinds of arms Colt proposed to make, but that of his revolving pistols, “it is the opinion of the department that a sufficient supply should be kept constantly on hand, and we have none now.”

Chief engineer Elisha King Root had been with Colt since 1849 . He became president of the company after Colt’s death, January, 1862 . Root was a quiet and methodical person, but a go-getter in his way. He had plenty of work cut out for him; Sam Colt on December 26, 1861 , had signed an additional contract for 25,000 muskets, although not one had been delivered on the first contract by that time. No arms had been produced, but the Colt factory had not been idle. Three large buildings totalling 160,000 square feet had been erected to the rear of the original pistol making buildings which dated from 1854 . But Colt’s machinery suppliers were not always prompt and the entire rifle musket program was far behind schedule, complicated by the second contract for 25,000 guns, which Root agreed to accept as soon as Colt’s death put the decision in his hands. By February of 1862 , 1,500 men were at work day and night on two 10-hour shifts. The massive flywheel Sidehammer rifle design is attr...