The men of the 12th laid low until Confederate infantry came within 50 yds. man John Jackson makes a wide variety of holsters and magazine pouches using European single bend leather, the best part of a hide, vegetable-tanning them so as to preserve a firearms finish. Blockade runner deliveries of British Pattern 1853 Enfield pattern arms coupled with captures at Chancellorsville and a small but steady domestic production, primarily at Richmond Armory, resulted in an Army of Northern Virginia that was, according to Confederate Col. Edward P. Alexander, 90 percent armed with rifled .54- and .58-cal. Spencer repeating rifles (not carbines, which would not be produced until October 1863) firing rimfire cartridges were indeed used in combat at Gettysburg, but not until the July 3 cavalry fight. The new Echelon 9mm semiautomatic pistol from Springfield Armory marks a new direction for the company's striker-fired handguns. Also, special quick-loading cartridge boxes containing 6, 10 or 13 tin tubes holding seven rounds each were devised by inventor Erastus Blakeslee. Loaded .56-50 ammunition is available from Ten-X Ammunition. 8 (November 2007): 27. The photo above does not seem like much, but the story behind it is incredible. With standard battle sights, the carbine fires extremely high (I can adjust this by fiddling around with the rear ladder slide), but groups are phenomenal: 100-yarders regularly come in at three inches or less, and that's about as good as I can shoot with any Civil War-vintage arm. Hitting targets at extreme distances requires much skill and precision on the part of the rifleman and his gear, but it would all be lost if the ammunition didn't match. It uses a falling breechblock mounted in a carrier. Almost two years of bloody combat remained, but from then to the end of the war, the Army of Northern Virginia would remain on the defensive, hoping for a game-changing event that would never come. The combat role of Civil War sharpshooters is often confused with that of modern snipers. If it was good enough for Old Abe, it certainly should be good enough for us. While no Spencer carbines were in the field at the time of the battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), the 5th Michigan cavalry (part of Custer's brigade) was armed with the Spencer Army rifle and used them very effectively on July 3 against General J.E.B. Read today's "The Armed Citizen" entry for real stories of law-abiding citizens, past and present, who used their firearms to save lives. The War Department was directed to order the Spencer repeating rifle, and by war's end, some 230,000 had been produced, initially by Spencer and later by the Burnside Rifle Company in Providence, RI. Ripley was a veteran of the war of 1812 as well as the Mexican-American War. Few can be more to the point, or poignant, than one sent by Colonel John T. Wilder describing the use of the Spencer at the Battle of Chickamauga. Using a fence rail for a rest, he jacked up the sights to what he thought an appropriate height for the range and squeezed off a shot at the advancing Confederate infantry, some 600 yds. Today these are some of the most valuable and sought-after of his products. Performance & security by Cloudflare. 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It soon developed a reputation for being unreliable in the fielda reputation that may have been exaggerated over time. Lee withdrew his battered army south, with Meade tentatively following. As with Second Manassas the previous year, Chancellorsville provided Lee with a springboard for an invasion of the North. Most Sharps & Hankins carbines were purchased by the navy, but New York bought some as well, apparently including those carried by three companies of the 9th New York Cavalry at Gettysburg. Lincoln invited Spencer back to the White House so that they could test the rifle. At Gettysburg some of those handguns were indeed fired at the enemy, however. The .54-cal. cartridges with 40- to 45-gr. It soon developed a reputation for being unreliable in the fielda reputation that may have been exaggerated over time. $1,699.99 Spencer Rifles NEW TODAY! In the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederate Army was in full retreat, forced to abandon all of its dead and most of its wounded. Along with the numerous corpseslittered about the battlefield, at least 27,574 rifles (I've also seen 37,574 listed) were recovered. In 1861 the Navy Department placed an order with Spencer for nearly 1,200 rifles, but the army refrained to follow suit. Learn More $1,495.00 REFERENCE BOOK ON SPENCER FIREARMS BY MARCOT The full title of this volume is "SPENCER REPEATING FIREARMS" by Roy M. Marcot and published by Rowe Publications of Rochester, New York in 1990. On August 17, 1863, a man named Christopher Miner Spencer entered the White House, gun in hand. There are bodies, both dead and wounded, to take care of, and weapons to gather. After waiting for invitee Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton - who was ultimately a no-show, saying he was too busy to attend ("They do pretty much as they have a mind to over there," quipped Lincoln) - they put the Spencer repeating rifle through its paces. Gettysburg, July 1, 1863. Although there had been proposals in the spring of 1863 to create sharpshooter battalions in the Union Army, the plan never materialized. Apparently, Lincoln was impressed right from the get-go, asking Spencer to explain the workings of the piece and disassemble it in order to "see the inwardness of the thing," which Spencer did. The armys two companies of Massachusetts sharpshooters had disposed of most, but not all, of their heavy state-supplied W. D. Langdon target rifles in exchange for Sharps rifles after Antietam, but also counted a few Merrill rifles in their ranks at Gettysburg. Plenty were killed before they could fire off a single pre-loaded shot. All Rights Reserved. The gun uses a gas-pressured system in which the gas produced from the fired bullet pushes the bolt back and causes the next round to cycle into the chamber. Spencer showed Lincoln his gun, and the president was impressed by how simple it was. When he encountered Gregg, Gen. Stuart ordered the 34th Virginia Cavalry Battalion to dismount and hold the Rummel farm. Revolvers, such as this .44-cal. During Pickett's Charge, the confederate army marched slowly towards the union lines and only began anything resembling a spirited jog once they had closed to a few hundred yards. The outcome of the ensuing firefight between two approximately equal forces armed with old and new technology was ambiguous. He was let in past the sentries and ushered in to meet with President Abraham Lincoln. One dropped a number of cartridges, nose-first, into the magazine. Your IP: Apparently, one poor soldier had reloaded his weapon twenty-three times, but the weird thing is that he never fired a single shot. 56, later called the 56/56, cartridge. Of the loaded rifles, 12,000 were loaded more than once and half of these (6,000 total) had been loaded between three and ten times. It still stands. By the summer of 1863, production of the Spencer Rifle was stepping up. 'Well,' he said, 'you are younger than I am, have a better eye and a steadier nerve. Firing forces are contained by the receiver at the rear of the breechblock. The 5th and part of the 6th Michigan Cavalry had recently been issued Spencers, and the 6th had used them for the first time in the eastern theater of war in a skirmish at Hanover, Pa., on June 30. It was shorter and could fire fifteen to twenty shots in one minute. Spencer repeating rifles (not carbines, which would not be produced until October 1863) firing rimfire cartridges were indeed used in combat at Gettysburg, but not until the July 3 cavalry fight. The .54-cal. Another author who uses this theory is Paddy Griffin. One Yankee struggling with the 2nd Mississippis color bearer for that regiments flag had a ball and three buckshot through the skirts of my frock coat . Around 10 percent of the arms captured by the Union First Army Corps that day were smoothbores, reflecting the accuracy of Col. Alexanders arms estimate. Casualties were light on both sides. . Although the rifle-musket was predominant on the Gettysburg battlefield, there were older .69-cal. Only two units of the Army of the Potomac were armed with Spencer Repeating Rifles at Gettysburg, the 5th and 6th Michigan under George Armstrong Custer who fought off Jeb Stuarts Cavalry led by the famous Wade Hampton and the beloved Colonel William G. Conner who was commanding the heroic Jeff Davis Legion. Inside the White House in War Times. A Repro at the Range. Of the recovered weapons, a staggering 24,000 were found to be loaded, either 87% or 63%, depending on which number you accept for the total number of rifles. Gen. Joseph Davis troops. General Greggs division included Brig. Whether you choose a modern repro or decide to shoot your original, I can heartily recommend the Spencer repeating rifle for a fun day at the range. Most of the Model of 1860 Spencer carbines still in inventory were modified for the .56-50 cartridge. A soldier would not be likely to notice even if it was his neighbor in the firing line was not shooting. Ammo is still available. Alger had 80 of these rifles given to a sister regiment, the 6th Michigan Cavalry. Longstreet at Gettysburg on Day 1, Disputing the Lost Cause June 30, 2023; The True Story of . There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Thompsons description of their tactics, with a three-man team including a shooter and spotter, bears a striking similarity to modern sniper techniques. After this, the shooters returned to the White House, and Lincoln gave Spencer his target to keep as a souvenir. Stoddard, William Oates. Union infantry, the First and then the Eleventh Army Corps, arrived in the nick of time, halting the Rebel advance. Kelly Post No. Hitting targets at extreme distances requires much skill and precision on the part of the rifleman and his gear, but it would all be lost if the ammunition didn't match. Another theory for the loaded rifles is simply that the soldiers did not get a chance to fire. The number of casualties at the battle alone (33,000 between the two sides), not all of which could have been caused by artillery, attests otherwise. In their position on Cemetery Ridge, the Jerseymen disassembled their buck and ball cartridges on July 3 while awaiting Picketts charge, creating massive ad hoc charges of fifteen or more buckshot for their Model 1842 muskets. Years after the war, when the veterans of the 12th erected their Gettysburg monument, it was surmounted by one large sphere and three small onesand inscribed with the words buck and ball.. Still, by mid-1861 Spencer had demonstrated his rifle to a trials board at the Washington Navy Yard, after which the Navy Department put in an order for 700 Spencer rifles (and bayonets), a figure that for production-cost purposes Spencer himself upped by another 300.